s she was bid, and stepped into one of the neatest and
cleanest and oddest rooms she had ever seen in her life.
The furniture in it was scanty, but what there was was old-fashioned
and good, there was a bright rug on the floor, a few pictures on the
walls at each end, an old-fashioned wooden bed at one side, a dear
little round table before the fire, and a large arm-chair. The room
was a large attic which really stretched over the whole of the top of
the house, but though it was so large, there was really not very much
available space in it, for the sides sloped steeply. Miss Patch had
curtained off the sides, and out of the long narrow strip down the
middle had formed, in Jessie's opinion, one of the nicest rooms she
had ever seen.

The owner of the room looked up at Jessie with a bright smile, a
smile which brightened still more when Jessie gave her message.

"Please, Charlie wants to know if you will come down and see his
room. I have been tidying it a little, and I moved the bed, and he
is so delighted with it he wants you to see it."

"I should like to, very much," said Miss Patch, "but I have
rheumatism in my knee to-day, and I can't get up and down stairs very
well. Perhaps, though," she added, with sudden thought, "you will
help me?"

"Oh yes," said Jessie, advancing further into the room, "I would like
to if I can. What shall I do?"

"I will ask you to let me lean on your shoulder a little, that is
all, dear. But will you wait just a moment while I finish preparing
the potatoes for my dinner?"

"Oh yes. I will wait, and--and--I'd like to help you," said Jessie,
half eager, half shy. "Thank you, dear, but I've nearly done, and it
isn't worth while for you to wet your hands. Sit down instead and
talk to me. I heard that Mrs. Lang was having a little daughter to
help her, and I have been hoping I should see you--but I haven't even
heard your name yet!"

"It is Jessie."

"Oh, is it. I am very glad, for I had a dear little pupil once
called by that name, and I have been fond of it ever since. She was
really, though, christened 'Jessica.'"

"I am only _called_ Jessie. I was christened Jessamine May,"
explained Jessie seriously. "Grandfather has got a jessamine growing
all over the front of his house, and he has ever such beautiful red
may-trees in the garden. They were there when mother was a little
girl, and she loved them so dearly she called me after them, to keep
her in mind of home."