"How did you manage to fall?" Lulu asked.
Dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, Celia explained exactly how the accident had happened, keeping an anxious watch on her sister as she spoke. She told how the puppy had stolen the novel, and how she had sought in vain to recover it. Lulu seemed to find amusement in the story, for she laughed heartily, and declared she could picture the scene.
"What would have happened if your mother or Sir Jasper had found out you had been reading the book?" she inquired, curiously; "there would have been a great to-do, I suppose?"
"Yes," Celia assented uneasily. She did not think it necessary to speak of Sir Jasper's suspicion of her sister, and Joy kept silence. "I should have been blamed, and you would have been blamed, and things would have been very disagreeable altogether."
"Well, then, I am glad you held your tongue," Lulu said, frankly, "for perhaps if it had become known that I had lent 'Lady Isabella's Treachery,' Sir Jasper might have spoken to father about it, and I should have got into trouble, too. I suppose the book was quite ruined?"
"Quite. I'm so sorry."
"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least!—it only cost sixpence in the first place, I believe."
"I was vexed I could not finish reading it," Celia acknowledged, regretfully. "I never was so interested in a story before. But you'll not tell anyone you lent it to me, will you?"
"Not without I'm asked outright, of course. I couldn't tell a story about it."
Joy looked at their visitor in silent amazement. Lulu rather prided herself on speaking the truth, although she had no scruples about acting a lie. She would prevaricate and deceive, but she would not tell a deliberate falsehood.