"She ought never to have borrowed that book from you," Joy said, seriously.
"I offered to lend it to her. I enjoyed reading it so much myself that I wanted her to read it too. What are you looking at me so solemnly for?"
"I was wondering how you could enjoy reading it after what you told us your father had said about it."
For a moment Lulu seemed taken aback, then she laughed, and replied good-humouredly: "What a wise little owl you look with your big, grave eyes. No one would think you and Celia were sisters. Do you dictate to her what she ought, and what she ought not to do?"
"No, of course not," Joy returned quickly. "Celia doesn't often do anything wrong," she continued loyally, "but it was wrong of her to borrow 'Lady Isabella's Treachery' from you, because she had to read it on the sly. It was very deceptive of her."
"And I suppose you think I'm very deceptive too?"
"Well—aren't you?"
"I expect you are sometimes," Lulu replied, ignoring the other's question.
"Oh, I hope not, I try not to be. Mother says to act deceptively is as bad as telling deliberate lies, and that's why I feel Celia ought not to have borrowed that book from you, for she knew exactly what mother would say about it. With you it is different, you have no mother, and—and—"
Joy paused in some confusion, realizing that it was not her place to take her companion to task. Lulu regarded her with a steady scrutiny which was rather discomposing as she asked: