ELSIE’S FORTUNES, 282 XLI. THE SECRET REVEALED, 291 INTRODUCTORY. ST. CLARA’S ISLE. The Island lies nine leagues away. Along its solitary shore Of craggy rock and sandy bay, No sound but ocean’s roar, Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home, Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam. _—R. H. Dana._ The scenes of our story lie along the Western shore of Maryland, near the mouth of the Potomac River, and among the islets of the Chesapeake Bay. Nothing can be more beautiful, grand, and inspiring than the scenery of this region. The great Potomac, a mighty and invincible monarch of rivers, even from her first stormy conquest, in which she rent apart the everlasting mountains, and forced herself a passage to the sea—widens and broadens her channel, extending the area of her empire continually as she goes on her irresistible way in a vast, calm, majestic flow of waters to the ocean. At the mouth of the river on the north, or Maryland side, is Point Lookout; on the south, or Virginia side, is Smith’s Point, with an expanse of water twenty miles in width between them. The shore on the Maryland side is broken by the most beautiful creeks and inlets, and dotted by the most beautiful islets that imagination can depict—creeks whose crystal-clear waters reflect every undulating hill and vale, every shadowy tree and bright flower lying upon their banks, and every soft and dark, or sun-gilded and glorious cloud floating in the skies above their bosoms; islets whose dewy, fresh and green luxuriance of vegetation, darksome trees and profound solitude, tempt one into poetic dreams of an ideal hermitage. The beauty and interest of this shore is enhanced by the occasional glimpses of rural homes—magnificent, or simply picturesque—seen indistinctly through the trees, at the head of some creek, on the summit of some distant hill, or in the shades of some thick grove. Nothing can surpass the pleasure of the opposite but delightfully blended emotions inspired by this scene. On the one hand the near shore, with its inlets and islands, its sunny hills and shadowy dells, its old forests, its cornfields, and its sweet, sequestered homes, yields that dear sense of safety and repose which the most adventurous never like to lose entirely. On the other hand, looking out to the sea, the broad expanse of waters, the free and unobstructed pathway to all parts of the world, fills and dilates the heart with an exultant sense of boundless freedom!