"Everything! I feel so ill-tempered and dissatisfied."
"I don't know that you have anything to be dissatisfied about, though. No one can help the weather; we must put up with the rain, and hope it will clear soon."
"Oh, it's not the rain that I mind so much," Lulu cried, impatiently, "but of course a wet day like this is very depressing. I'm tired of things in general."
Celia stared at her companion in amazement. What could Lulu mean? Had she not everything that heart could wish? And she had only herself to please in all the world, for her father seldom interfered with her pursuits, and was satisfied to let her go her own way.
"Don't you ever feel discontented, Celia?" Lulu inquired.
"Yes, sometimes," was the frank response, "when I can't have things I want. Before we came to the Moat House, that was pretty often."
"Father told me your mother was poorly off. You lived in a little house at A—, did you not? I wish you'd tell me about it."
"There's really not much to tell." Celia was rather ashamed of the small way in which she and her family had lived, but since Lulu evidently knew something of their circumstances, she saw no reason why she should not gratify her curiosity. "It was a poky little place," she admitted, "the dining-room about a quarter of the size of yours, and the drawing-room smaller still. We had no garden worth mentioning, and the house was semi-detached."
"And you only kept one servant?"
"Yes—Jane. Joy writes to her occasionally still, I believe."