While Jessie was hesitating as to whether she should tap on the door and make her presence known or walk on further through the corridor, a conversation which she could not help overhearing, held her spell-bound, fairly rooted to the spot. "I assure you it is quite true, Janet," the lovely young girl was saying in a very fretful, angry voice. "The old lady has got a companion in the house at last. But she shall not stay long beneath this roof depend upon that, Janet. She is young and very beautiful. "I would not care so much, if it were not that the handsome grandson is expected to arrive every day." "Surely, Miss Rosamond, you, with all your beauty, do not fear a rival in the little humble companion." "Companions have been known to do a great deal of mischief before now, and, as I have said, the girl is remarkably pretty. I saw her from the library window as she was coming up the front steps, and then, when old Mrs. Bassett came down to the library, I was safely ensconced behind the silken draperies of the bay-window, and I heard all that was said. You may be sure that I was angry enough. She shall not stay here long, if I can help it. I will make it so unpleasant for her that she will be glad to go. I detest the girl already, on general principles." Jessie Bain cowered back, dazed and bewildered, almost doubting her own senses as to what she had just heard. Smarting with bitter pain, Jessie turned away and hurried swiftly down the corridor in the opposite direction. She was quickly retracing her steps back to her own room, when she met Harriet again in the corridor. "I was just coming for you, miss," she said, "thinking that you might not be able to find your way, after all, there are so many twists and turns hereabouts," and without further ado she quickly retraced her steps, nodding to Jessie to follow. The breakfast-room into which she was ushered was by far the most commodious room in the house. A great, square apartment with ceilings and panelings of solid oak, massive side-boards, which contained the family silver for fully a century or more, great, high-backed chairs with heavy carvings, done up in leather, and a polished, inlaid floor, with here and there a velvet rug or tiger's skin. The old lady was seated at the table as Harriet ushered in the young girl. She smiled, and nodded a welcome. Opposite her sat a little old man with large ears, who peered at her sharply from over a pair of double-barreled, gold-rimmed eyeglasses. "This is the young person whom I have just engaged as my companion," said Mrs. Bassett, shrilly, turning toward her husband. "H'm!" ejaculated the old gentleman. "What did you say this young woman's name was?" "Bain," she replied. "Hey?" he exclaimed, holding his right hand trumpet fashion, to his ear. "Give me the name a little louder." "Miss Bain-- Jessie Bain!" shouted his wife, in an ear-splitting voice that made every nerve in Jessie's body throb and quiver.