It was an enlarged photograph of quite a young girl with a happy-looking countenance, which bore some slight resemblance to Lulu's.
"How very young she looks!" Celia exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes; she was only nineteen when she died," Lulu replied. "Do you think I am at all like her? Father says I am, sometimes." Then, without waiting for a reply to her question, she continued: "Do you know, father declared the other day that occasionally I appear older to him than my mother when he married her."
"How strange!" cried Joy, her eyes still examining the photograph of the late Mrs. Tillotson.
"He was cross with me when he said it," Lulu confessed, "and he isn't often that. He had caught me reading a book he didn't approve of, and he said he didn't know what the children of this generation were coming to. I am sure it was a very nice book."
"What was it?" Celia asked, curiously.
"It was called 'Lady Isabella's Treachery,' a most exciting story about a nobleman's wife who stole some jewels, and put the blame off on someone else. One of the servants lent it to me, and father made me give it back to her; but I borrowed it again, and finished reading it after all. You would enjoy it, Celia. It is so interesting. Father said himself there was no real harm in it," she proceeded, hurriedly, as she noticed both her hearers looked surprised, and more than a little shocked; "he said it was mere trash, but it was most exciting, and a I'd rather read a story like that than the books he would like to see me with—Sir Walter Scott's novels, for instance."
"Joy thinks Sir Walter Scott's novels are splendid," Celia said with a smile, "but I find them rather dull myself."
Being market day, Mr. Tillotson was very busy, and had no time to devote to his daughter's visitors; but at dinner he suggested that Lulu should take them for a walk, and show them the town; so a little later in the afternoon they put on their hats and sallied forth into the street.
Celia and Lulu had so much to say to each other that Joy was quite left to herself, and began to feel aggrieved. She followed her companions from shop to shop, and waited patiently whilst they remarked on the goods in the windows, and discussed the fashions; but the time dragged for her, and the afternoon seemed interminable. They visited the market, where Joy found some amusement in watching the farmer's wives and daughters gossiping behind their stalls; but they did not remain there long, and returned to the shop windows.