"That's a bad girl, Kitty," he cried; "and you ought to have nothing to do with her."
"But that's exactly it, father—that's what I am coming to. If you won't let me have anything to do with Elma, why—why, you must punish me terribly. I want you to let me—to let me make Elma my real friend."
"That sort of girl your friend? Not if I know it," said the squire.
"But, please, father, do let me plead for her. I have done her injury, and she—she has never had advantages like the rest of us."
Then Kitty began to coax, and few, very few people could coax like this Irish girl. Not only with her voice, but with her eyes, with a smile here and a frown there, she set herself to bring old Squire Malone to her way of thinking. And as always from the time she was a tiny child she had been able to twist this old lion round her little finger, so she twisted him now.
"You have got to do it, father," she said at last. "You have got to forgive Laurie, and you have got to forgive Elma, and——"
"Bless the boy, it was just like his recklessness, Why didn't he come and tell me? He wasn't afraid of his old father, was he?"
"Well, father, you know you are very fierce when you like."
"Tut! tut! Kitty, don't you begin to scold."
"No; I won't—not if you yield to me. Full and free forgiveness for the whole three of us; for your Kit——"