The bay lay in the direction of Steeple Rocks, but the climb to reach it would have been impossible from the beach. This was blocked by the high cliff whose rocks reached out into the waves and curved around into one side of the bay’s enclosure, though gradually lowering in height. Much farther away, around the curving, rocky, inland shore of the bay, and across its quiet waters from this cliff, loomed the other more bulging headland which reminded Beth of a cathedral in some of its outlines. But Beth was an artist, and an artist had not named Steeple Rocks.
Dalton helped Elizabeth while the other girls scrambled up to the path by themselves. “I do hate to play the invalid, Dal,” breathlessly said Beth, clutching her brother’s arm. “What is the matter with me, anyhow?”
“Nothing in the world, Doc said, but being just played out. What do you expect? You can’t do a million things and teach school, for fun, of course, on the side, and feel as frisky as a rabbit at the end of the year. Just wait, old girl. We had to let you help us get ready to come, but about two weeks of doing nothing and sleeping in this air,—well, you will probably be able to help me up the rocks!”
Leslie, meanwhile, was explaining to her chum Sarita how their property included the smaller headland and its rocks. “There is right of way, of course, but this is ours.”
The girls were standing by this time high on the rocks, from which they could look down and back, along the beach where they had been. At this place the point ran out to its curving, jutting, broken but solid rampart which kept the sea from the bay. Below them a few boats dotted the surface of the bay. Sarita through her glass was watching a vessel which was passing far out on the ocean.
“How did it happen, Leslie, that you never came here?” Sarita asked.
“You see, Father had just bought it the summer before he died. He had been up in Canada and then down on the coast of Maine. He came home to tell us of the place he had bought at a great bargain, where we had an ocean view, a bay to fish in, and a tiny lake of our own. Then came all our troubles and we had almost forgotten about it, except to count it among our assets, pay tax on it and wish that we could raise some money on it. But nobody wanted a place that had no good roads for an automobile and was not right on the railroad, though, for that matter, I don’t think it’s so terribly far.”
“Yes, it is, Les, for anybody that wants to be in touch with civilization, but who wants to be for the summer?”
“Well, as we told you when Beth said I could ask you to come along, it is just what we want to camp in, and there are people near enough for safety, besides the ‘Emporium’ of modern trade in the village, if that is what one can call this scattered lot of cottages.”
“It is more picturesque, Beth says, just as it is, and most of the summer cottages are on the other side of the village, or beyond the Steeple Rocks, in the other direction, so we’ll not be bothered with anybody unless we want to be. I like folks, myself, but when you camp you want to camp, and Beth is so tired of kiddies that she says she doesn’t want to see anybody under fifteen for the whole three months!”