To the girls’ surprise they heard an exclamation.
THE SECRET OF STEEPLE ROCKS
CHAPTER I
STEEPLE ROCKS
“Are you satisfied, Beth?”
Elizabeth Secrest turned with a smile to the twogirls who had come up behind her, their footfallssilent in the sand. “The world is mine,” she answered,with a comprehensive sweep of her arm andhand toward the foaming surf which was almost attheir feet. “Doesn’t it fill you, some way?”
“Yes, Beth; I’m not myself at all. Here,—takethese and look at those towering rocks with them.”Sarita Moore handed her fine glasses, all shiningand new, to the older girl, who directed them towarda distant pile of rocks. There two rose high,irregularly decreasing in circumference, and at thisdistance apparently pointed at their tops. Belowthem massed the other rocks of the dark headland.
Elizabeth looked long and steadily. “SteepleRocks!” she murmured. “I wish that I ownedthem! But I would give them a better name. I’dcall them Cathedral Rocks. Doesn’t the whole massmake you think of the cathedrals,—the cathedralsthat you and I are going to see some day, Leslie?”
The third girl of the group now took the glasseswhich her sister offered. “Sometimes, Beth, I can’tfollow the lines of your imagination; but it doesn’ttake much this time to make a cathedral out of that.Are you happy, Beth?” There was a tone of anxietyin the question.
“Yes, child. Who could help being happy here?Look at that ocean, stretching out and away—intoeternity, I think,—and the clouds—and the poundingof the surf. Think, girls! It’s going to putus to sleep to-night!”
“Unless it keeps us awake,” suggested Leslie,“but I’m all lifted out of myself, too, Beth. Imaginebeing here all summer! Look at Dal, Sarita.”
Leslie pointed toward a masculine figure standingon the beach not far in advance of them. “It’s ‘whatare the wild waves saying?’ to Dal all right!”
Dalton Secrest, who had preceded his two sistersand their friend in their visit to the beach and thetossing waves, stood facing the sea, his hands in hispockets, his tall young body straight before thestrong breeze. He heard the girls’ voic