Upon which Kate laughed, and he, taking courage, laughed too, withdrawing his guilty eyes, and blazing red to his very hair. And when Mrs Mitford came back, she could not but think that on the whole they had made a great deal of progress. The two fathers were in the library for a long time over that charter, and Kate’s merry talk soon beguiled the yielding mother. When the tea came, she sat apart and made it, and watched the young ones with her tender eyes. It seemed to her that she had never seen her boy so happy. “She must have been making fun of me with all that about the clergymen,” Mrs Mitford said to herself; “and but for that, what could I desire more?” And she thought of John’s happiness with such a wife, and of Kate’s fortune, and of what a blessing it would be if it could be brought about; and sighed--as indeed most people do when it appears to them as if their prayers were about to be granted, and nothing left to them more to desire. CHAPTER V. “Well, Kate, I will leave you here since you wish it,” Mr Crediton said next morning before he went away; “but first I must warn you to mind what you are about. They are very nice people, and have been very good to you--but I think I had rather have left you at home all the same. See that you don’t repay good with evil--that’s all.” “You must have a very poor opinion of me, papa,” said Kate, demurely; “but how could I do that if I were to try?” Mr Crediton shook his head. “I have a great mind to carry you off still,” he said. “I don’t feel at all sure that you have not begun it already. Kate, there is that young man to whom I owe your life----” This expression touched her deeply. It was not, to whom _you_ owe your life;--that would have been commonplace. “Dear papa,” said Kate, embracing his arm with both hands, and putting down her head upon it, “I always wonder why you took the trouble to care for me so much.” “I suppose it’s for your mother’s sake,” he answered, looking down upon his child with eyes which were liquid and tender with love; but such a little episode was only for a moment. “Let us come back to our subject,” he said. “Don’t make that boy unhappy, Kate. That would be a very poor return. He looks something of a cub, but I hear he is a very good fellow, and he saved your life. Let him alone. He deserves it at your hands.” “What! to be let alone! What a curious way of showing one’s gratitude!” cried Kate. “No, papa, I know a way worth two of that. He shall be my friend. There shall be no nonsense--that I can promise you; but to pay no attention to him would be horribly ungrateful. I could not do it. Besides, he is very nice--not the sort of man you would ever fall in love with, but very nice--for a friend.” “Ah! I put no faith in your friends,” said Mr Crediton, shaking his head. “I have a great mind to take you home after all.”