Stormpoint was not inaptly named. A huge crag jutting out into the sea, whose waves, ever darting against its granite sides, rolled off with a continuous muffled bellow of baffled rage, which, when the storm was on, rose to a roar. A cabin had once stood on the bluff, which, tradition asserted, had been the home of the first Eliphalet Claghorn, whose crumbling tomb, with its long and quaint inscription, was hard by. The Reverend Eliphalet slept quiet in death, but the howl of the storm and the roar of the waves must have kept him awake on many a night in life. Even the stately castle erected by Joseph Claghorn's widow often trembled from the shock of the blast. The region about was strewn with huge boulders, evidences of some long-past upheaval of nature, while among the crags great trees had taken root. The landscape was majestic, but the wind-swept soil was barren, and the place had remained a waste. Only a fortune, such as had been derived from the Great Serpent, could make the Point comfortable for habitation. But the task had been accomplished, and Stormpoint was the second wonder of Easthampton, the first being the wonderful chapel, St. Perpetua.
Paula gloried in Stormpoint. Not for its grandeur or the money it had cost, but because she loved the breeze and the sea and the partial isolation. Even now, as she ascended the bluff by a side path, rugged and steep, and commenced to smell the ocean and feel its damp upon her cheek, the Reverend Arthur Cameril seemed less like an early Father, and his lemon-colored kids less impressive.
On hearing her name called and looking up, she smiled more brightly and looked more beautiful than she had yet looked that day, though, from the moment she had emerged from her morning bath of salt water she had been beautiful. "Aha! Leonard, is that you?" she exclaimed.
"Where have you been?" asked Leonard, as he reached her side.
"At Miss Claghorn's. She sent for me."
Leonard's eyes opened wide. "Cousin Achsah sent for you! What for?"
"She will tell you."
"And you won't. Well, I must wait. What have you there?" taking the little red book from her hand. "'The Lives of the Hermits!' Oh, Paula; you had better read the 'Lives of the Laundresses'; these were a very dirty set."
"Leonard! How can you? A clergyman, a professor of theology!"
"Oh, I've no objection to them except that," he answered, "and I wouldn't mention their favorite vanity if they had not so reveled in it and plumed themselves upon it. Paula, Paula," he added, more seriously, "Father Cameril gave you that."