At a late hour of this night, the young widow Cuthbert was still busy, as she had been all day, at her employment of net-making. The song with which she lulled her infant to sleep had long ceased, and she pursued her work in perfect silence by the dim light of her solitary lamp; her thoughts were alternately with the children who lay sleeping around her, and with the husband whose place of long repose was beneath the waters. As often as a little hand stirred above the coverlid, or a rosy cheek was turned upon its pillow, the anxious mother gazed and watched, and as often as the gust swept past, or a larger billow broke upon the shingle, her heart throbbed as if she was still awaiting the return of him who should never more return. She started, at length, on hearing a tap at her door. “It is only Ella,” said a voice from the outside; and the widow hastened to open the door. “Your husband, your husband!” she exclaimed; “no ill to him I trust. You are not in fear for him, Ella?” “He is safe home, thank Him who guides the storms!” replied Ella: “but it is a gusty night.” “Ye look cold and your plaid drips,” said the widow, setting down the lamp, and applying more fuel to her smouldering fire. “What brings ye here so late, Ella?” “Only a message from Angus about the nets, which I should have left till the morn, but that Kenneth and I saw a glimmer beneath your door, and I knew I should find you at your occupation. We press you too close for your work, Katie. It’s an ill thing for sad hearts to watch so late. Better that we should do without our nets, than that you should look as you do now.” “’Tis for my bairns,” said Katie, “or I would not undergo it. O, Ella! I have been jealous of you these two hours past, if, as I supposed, you were on the rock looking out.” “No wonder, Katie; and yet I could have found in my heart to be jealous of Fergus’s wife, and all the wives that were serving their husbands by the fireside, instead of breasting the wind, and mistaking every jet of the surge for a sail, as I have been doing since the sun went down. But I had Kenneth to while away the time with, and help to keep in the light. He showed me how they hoist the lanterns at the station, and our signals will be better managed from this night forward. O Katie, you must see Kenneth, and I must tell you all that his uncle has done for him.” “But your husband,” interrupted the widow; “how long was he? and in what style did his boat come ashore? and which of you first saw him? and——”