He talked on eagerly in his old-fashioned way, his face flushing with weakness and excitement.  It was such a rare treat to him to have any one to talk to, particularly any one of his own age—­a sympathetic listener, too.

“Do you know Miss Patch yet?”

“No,” said Jessie.  “I only came last night very late.  I’ve seen one lodger, a young man.  He came down in the kitchen to his breakfast.”

“Oh, Tom Salter!  You’ll like him—­I do.  I want my breakfast, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jessie, with a deep sigh.  “I am very hungry, but—­ but—­your mother said we would wait till father was gone.”  She hesitated over the term by which she should speak of her stepmother.  Charlie noticed it.

“I wish you’d call her ‘mother,’” he said gently; “it would make us seem more like brother and sister, and I would love to have a sister.  I’ve wished so often that I’d got one, or had got somebody to talk to, and read and play with me.  Mother would like it, too.  She isn’t really cross, you know.  She is only tired and worried.  You see, she’s got me to look after, and me and father to keep, and ever so many lodgers.  I am so glad you’re come to help her.  I do long to be able to, and I can only give her extra trouble.”  He spoke with sad earnestness far beyond his age.

A ray of comfort entered Jessie’s sad heart.  She felt really drawn towards her new stepbrother, and she loved to feel she was being useful.

“Yes, I’ll help her,” she said as brightly as she could for the weariness which was creeping over her.  “I have been, a little, already.  Can I help you?  I’d love to try and make your room a little bit tidier.”

“Does it look untidy?” asked Charlie, feeling somewhat taken aback.

It looked more than untidy, but Jessie was too polite to say so, and as she leaned against the bed she was planning in her mind what she could do to make it nicer for him.

“I wish I could get you some flowers,” she said eagerly, “some out of our garden.  Oh, we had such lots there, such lovely ones, roses, and violets, jessamine and lilac, and may—­oh, all sorts.  I had a garden of my own, too.  Oh, I’d love to take you to granny’s, and let you see it all!”

Charlie was watching her and listening with intense interest.  “How sorry you must be to leave it all!” he remarked sympathetically.  “I’d love to lie in a garden with flowers, and the bees humming, and no noise of rattling carts and milk-cans.  Oh, Jessie!” but to his dismay Jessie buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“I can’t stay here,” she cried, “I can’t, I can’t!  I must go home.  I shall die if I don’t go home to granp,” and she sobbed and sobbed until Charlie was quite frightened.

“Jessie, don’t—­don’t—­don’t cry like that.  I’ll ask mother to let you go, if you want to so badly—­but I wish you didn’t,” he sighed, his own lips quivering.  “I wish you would stay here.  I want you so much, I am so lonely and dull, and—­and I hoped you were come to stay.”