"Tabitha Cone, you'd try the patience of a saint!"
"If I had the opportunity!" And so, with whetted swords they plunged into the fray.
The newcomer was graciously welcomed at Stormpoint, though Paula bewailed her selection of abode, tending, as it did, to frustrate certain plans, which were to result in alluring Natalie to the sheltering arms of St. Perpetua. Paula was confident of the courage of Father Cameril, but even a brave man may hesitate to pluck a jewel from the den of a lion, and she knew that to such a den the good Father likened the home of Miss Claghorn.
But Mrs. Joe approved Natalie's choice. "Miss Achsah's her blood relation," she said.
"What is blood? An accident. Friendship is born of sympathy," protested Paula.
"And since that is the basis of our friendship," observed Natalie, "you will understand that when my grand-aunt offered me a home on the ground of duty, I also recognized a duty."
"A home on the ground of duty," repeated Paula, with as near an approach to a sneer as she was capable of effecting.
"Could she feel affection, who had never seen me? Remember, she stood in the place of mother to my father. I fear she had reason to believe that the fact had been forgotten."
Mrs. Joe nodded approval.
"Inclination would have led me to you," Natalie proceeded. "It may be, too, that I was influenced by the hope that I might, in some degree, brighten the life of an old woman who had outlived her near relations. I remembered how Cousin Jared, whom we all liked so well, reverenced her. And then, I approved her pride in the name. I, too, am a Claghorn."