"

"Thank you, my child," replied Mr Meldrum, drawing her fondly to his
side, and speaking as if they were alone together. "You have taught me
a lesson, and I will repine no longer about the immutable. It is best
to look forward, as you say. We ought to recollect that all our days
must not necessarily be gloomy because for the moment they may happen to
be overcast!"

"No, sirree," interposed Mr Lathrope, "and I guess this air blizzard
ain't going to last for ever:-- it looks now railly as if it wer' goin'
to leave off snowing."

"I think you are right," said Frank Harness, who had been sitting on the
other side of Kate, listening quietly to the conversation between her
and her father. "I don't see any flakes now coming through the chinks
of the door, as they were doing a short time ago. It is either leaving
off, or the wind has chopped round to the southward and westward again."

So saying, Frank got up and went to peer without the portal, the others
that were in the general room not stirring, for the greater number of
the seamen were asleep in their dormitory. It was getting towards
evening and most of the limited duties which it was possible to give the
men to do, now that they were continuously confined indoors, had been
already got through for the day.

Only Ben Boltrope and Karl Ericksen, amongst the hands, were up and
awake; and they were engaged in playing a game of chequers with a set of
counters which the Norwegian had skilfully carved out of black basalt
and white pumice-stone, both of which had been found lying close
together at the bottom of the creek. The board that they played on was
made by the carpenter, but it had been divided into proper squares
through the aid of Mr Meldrum's compasses and parallel ruler, wielded
by Mr Lathrope; so that all of them, so to speak, had a hand in the
construction of the complete article.

Both Mr Lathrope and Frank were right as to the weather, for, although
the snow-flakes came down more slowly and were much smaller than they
had been, the shifting of the wind had created the change. This was now
blowing into the bay straight from the sea; and while the gale was still
as high and fierce as at the beginning of the snow-storm, it was not
quite so cold.

The waves, however, were rolling against the cliffs just as they had
done when the _Nancy Bell_ struck on the reef, and the reverberation of
their roar was fearfully grand out in the open. The piled-up snow