In the earlier days of his ministry to the congregation he had tried to reclaim her , and Naomi had mocked and flouted him to his face . Then , for the sake of those to whom she was a snare or a heart-break , he had endeavoured to set the law in motion against her , and Naomi had laughed the law to scorn . Finally , he had been compelled to let her alone . Yet Naomi had not always been an outcast . Her girlhood had been innocent ; but she was the possessor of a dangerous beauty , and her mother was dead . Her father was a man notorious for his harshness and violence of temper . When Naomi made the fatal mistake of trusting to a false love that betrayed and deserted , he drove her from his door with taunts and curses . Naomi took up her quarters in a little deserted house at Spruce Cove . Had her child lived it might have saved her . But it died at birth , and with its little life went her last chance of worldly redemption . From that time forth , her feet were set in the way that takes hold on hell . For the past five years , however , Naomi had lived a tolerably respectable life . When Janet Peterson had died , her idiot daughter , Maggie , had been left with no kin in the world . Nobody knew what was to be done with her , for nobody wanted to be bothered with her . Naomi Clark went to the girl and offered her a home . People said she was no fit person to have charge of Maggie , but everybody shirked the unpleasant task of interfering in the matter , except Mr. Leonard , who went to expostulate with Naomi , and , as Janet said , for his pains got her door shut in his face . But from the day when Maggie Peterson went to live with her , Naomi ceased to be the harbour Magdalen . The sun had set when Mr. Leonard reached Spruce Cove , and the harbour was veiling itself in a wondrous twilight splendour . Afar out , the sea lay throbbing and purple , and the moan of the bar came through the sweet , chill spring air with its burden of hopeless , endless longing and seeking . The sky was blossoming into stars above the afterglow ; out to the east the moon was rising , and the sea beneath it was a thing of radiance and silver and glamour ; and a little harbour boat that went sailing across it was transmuted into an elfin shallop from the coast of fairyland .
Mr. XXXXX sighed as he turned from the sinless beauty of the sea and sky to the threshold of Naomi Clark 's house .
Janet Leonard Maggie Peterson days girlhood shallop splendour violence years