This actually proved to be the case, for the moment Sir Jasper Amery's carriage drew up before the lawyer's house and the two girls stepped out, Lulu, who had been anxiously awaiting their arrival, appeared on the doorstep and took possession of Celia at once.
"Come up to my bedroom and take off your hat," she said; then turning to Joy she added, apparently as an after-thought: "And you too, Joy."
The lawyer's house was comfortably furnished, regardless of expense, and Lulu's room was as fresh and dainty an apartment as any little girl could wish to call her own, with its suite of white enamelled furniture, and its brass-mounted, white-curtained bed. The window looked out into the main street of the busy town, and Saturday being market day at T— there were many people about, mostly farmers and their wives and daughters. Joy watched the pedestrians passing to and fro, whilst Lulu disclosed the contents of her set of drawers and wardrobe, which she evidently considered a mode of entertainment, for Celia's benefit.
Many were Celia's exclamations of gratification as she turned over Lulu's numerous possessions; but she shook her head when Lulu would have made her a present of a turquoise brooch which she had particularly admired. "No, no, I can't take it, but thank you so much for wishing to give it to me," Celia cried, gratefully. "It is a lovely brooch; but I am certain mother would not like me to accept such a valuable present."
"Oh, you must have it, Celia! These blue stones are the very colour to suit you. Surely Mrs. Wallis would not mind your taking it when I so much wish you to have it? Let me pin it in your frock, and then you will see how it looks."
This was done, and Celia surveyed herself in a looking-glass. Lulu was right; she thought the brooch with its blue stones certainly suited her fair complexion. She longed to keep it, but she knew her mother would not approve of her doing so; therefore, she shook her head more decidedly than she had done before, and unfastening the brooch, handed it back to Lulu. "It is very kind and generous of you to wish to give it to me," she said with a sigh, "but I must not take it, really. Mother would not like me to do so, would she, Joy?"
"No, she would not," Joy agreed, decidedly. "I think if you took it she'd most probably make you return it," she added, bluntly.
Lulu looked really disappointed, for she had set her heart on making a present of the brooch to her new friend; but she now put it away without another word. She was not so disappointed as Celia, though.
When Lulu had exhibited all her treasures, she took her visitors into the drawing-room, which was upstairs, as most of the lower rooms of the house were given up to offices; she explained that she was always trying to induce her father to take a private house in the suburbs of the town, but he would not.
"He says perhaps he will when I leave school," she told her companions, "but that won't be for ages. That's my mother's likeness over the mantelpiece."