CHAPTER VII. AT BREAKFAST.

THE two girls had already found
themselves drawn together. Mary Leader was
considered cold by her friends, or rather
acquaintances, and it was hard to get within
that crust of reserve, or shyness, which
had grown about her. She might have
met Katey under other circumstances, say
in London, and would have parted from
her as from some mere acquaintance. But
here the crisis had brought them together
to the fusion of their very hearts; and
Katey's naturalness, her open sympathies,
with that wearing her heart, as the phrase
runs, upon her sleeve, were irresistible, as
we have seen. And she had that species
of coaxing affection, which was not mere
manner, but based on a genuine good
will and love for those she knew. Then,
too, there was her cruel situation, which
Mary read off at once; all these things together
made that young lady her firm
friend on the spot.

Early in the morning Mr. Leader was
down, and had taken a walk along the
beach, in serious trouble of mind as to
what he was to do, and had returned home
about nine. The Doctor, never "an early
bird," was "still in the flax," as he would
have said; and Mr. Leader had the room
to himself, and the Folkestone Observer, or
Courant, whatever was the title of the local
journal, to read, and the gloomy, dull
bricks of Harbour-street to look out at.
Suddenly entered Katey, hesitating, her
gentle face timorous, and a little piteous.
In a moment she had run up to him in her
own confiding way, and was at his knees,
taking his hands in hers.

"My poor child, don't do that," he said;
"here, sit down next me. How is our
patient?"

"Oh, but you cannot forgive me—you
look on me as an enemy who has brought
you grief and disgrace. But, indeed, it
was not—rather it was—all, all my fault.
I have brought all this about, and do not
wish to excuse myself. And I know I
deserve to be punished."

"Punished! who thinks of such a thing?
That is—I mean——But you see the
whole business is so awkward—that is—
Mrs. Leader——"

Poor man! he always came back to that.
When he felt it difficult to describe nicely
his predicament, his harassed and worried
position, that name put everything in the
most logical and accurate view. Katey
understood it all quite clearly.

"Don't think of this, or worry yourself,"
he said, kindly, for he too was beginning
to feel the Katey spell; "it will
come right in some way. Tell me about
him. I am afraid you have had your own
worries and troubles. Sit down beside me,
and tell me everything."

Then Katey accepted this invitation,
and, sitting down beside her new father,
began her little story—a story told with
great and tearful earnestness, natural and
graphic, but not in the least bearing hardly
on her husband. He was ill. Oh, and had
suffered so much, and it was not his fault.
Mr. Leader might depend on this, she
would do her duty by Cecil.

Greatly interested and touched by this
pleading, Mr. Leader asked what her history
had been.

"I wish," he said, anxiously, "we had
known you before all this had happened.
Then everything would have been smoothed
away. We only saw you at a distance,
and Mrs. Leader, you know——"

"Ah! it would have been all the same,"
said Katey, mournfully; "and Peter says
so. Mrs. Leader never did, never could
like me. I have injured her in some dreadful,
terrible way. She showed me that
the night of the ball. Now she is going
to punish me. I should not mind that,
'deed no, Mr. Leader. Oh! if I could
but take it all on my own shoulders! But
is it not hard that he should be so dreadfully
punished?"

"Oh, he has behaved foolishly and
disrespectfully to me; but it would be much
harder, my dear child, if you were to be
made an innocent victim for his folly. I
know I like you, and should get quite
fond of you, my dear child: and it seems
most absurd and ridiculous to be taking
up these animosities, especially when the
thing can't be mended."

In comes Peter now, hilarious, hearty,
yet not boisterous, busy ordering up a
capital breakfast of fried ham and fish, and
hot cakes; and whether the guest was
hungry after his night's journey, or was
not accustomed to such provender at his
own breakfast-table, or whether it struck
a chord that recalled similar banquets
in his old barristerial days, Mr. Leader
made a most hearty breakfast, and after
it was over was in a capital humour. His
son, too, he found growing better under
the Doctor's prescription. Then he went
out with Katey to look at such modest
lions as were accustomed to roar in the
town; and by this time he had found
what a close intimacy had sprung up
between his daughter and Katey.

Mary came to him, and, with that calm,