“We shall never have any reserves in our confidence henceforth, Ella,” said Katie, smiling. “There has been but one subject on which I was not always glad to hear you speak; and now that one is settled for ever.” Ella was glad that Katie had thus spoken, for she had not been perfectly sure of her friend’s state of feeling. She now gazed affectionately on that youthful face, touched but not withered by early sorrow, and kissed the forehead of the friend she loved like a younger sister, and whom she could not have regarded as such more tenderly if they had been made sisters by marriage. ---------------------------- CHAPTER VIII. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE UNTEACHABLE. Angus was restored safe to his home; but his return was melancholy enough. He was blown over the Sound by a storm, and landed at the moment that the funeral train who bore the bodies of Fergus’s two children were winding up the rocks to the burial-place. The anxious father was naturally possessed with the idea that this was the funeral of the child he had left so ill; and he was confirmed in the supposition by seeing none of his family on the beach to await his arrival. Kenneth and his brothers were among the mourners, and Angus therefore found his wife and the girls alone when, with a throbbing heart, he entered his own dwelling. Ella met him with a calm but sad countenance, which, together with the silent awe with which the children looked up to him, answered but too plainly the question he would have asked. Little Jamie had died a few hours before in his mother’s arms. The last words he spoke had been to call for his father. “O, why was I not here?” exclaimed the mourning parent, laying his cheek to that of his boy, as if the cold body could be conscious of the caress. “It must have been an evil spirit that decoyed me away.” “Alas, then, your voyage has been in vain!” said Ella. “You have brought no bread.” Angus shook his head mournfully, and cast down the pouch of useless money that came back as full as it went out. The scarcity extended through all the neighbourhood, and no food was to be bought at any price. Ella saw her husband’s look of despondency, and rallied. She reminded him that they had a stock of meal, though a scanty one, and she held out the hope, suggested by Ronald’s information, that a sloop would soon arrive with food enough to afford a temporary supply to all the inhabitants.