be attempted. And, which made
matters worse, even if the attempt should succeed, it would be a
rewardless one to Miss Sally. If she might detain the captain for
herself, the effort would be worth making. The aunt sighed deeply,
shook her head distressfully, and then, reverting to a keen sense of
Elizabeth's rage and ridicule in the event of failure, looked wildly
around for some suggestion of means to hold the officer. Her eye
alighted on the hat.

"He won't go without his hat, a night like this!" she thought. "I'll
hide his hat."

She forthwith possessed herself of it, and explored the room for a
hiding-place. She decided on one of the little narrow closets in
either side of the doorway to the east hall, and started towards it,
holding the hat at her right side. Before she had come within four
feet of the chosen place, she heard the door from the south hall being
thrown open, and, casting a swift glance over her left shoulder, saw
the captain step across the threshold. She choked back her sensations,
and gave inward thanks that the hat was hidden from his sight by
herself. Peyton walked briskly towards the table.

Suddenly he stopped short, and turned his eyes from the table to Miss
Sally, whose back was towards him.

"Ah, Miss Williams," said he, politely but hastily, "I left my hat
here somewhere."

"Indeed?" said Miss Sally, amazed at her own unconsciousness, while
she tried to moderate the beating of her heart. At the same moment,
she turned and faced him, bringing the hat around behind her so that
it should remain unseen.

Peyton looked from her to the spinet, thence to the sofa, thence back
to the table.

"Yes, on the table, I thought. Perhaps--" He broke off here, and went
to look on the mantel.

Miss Sally, who had never thought the captain handsomer, and who
smarted under the sense of being deterred, by her niece's purpose,
from employing this opportunity to fascinate him on her own account,
continued to turn so as to face him in his every change of place.

"I don't see it anywhere," she said, with childlike innocence.

Peyton searched the mantel, then looked at the chairs, and again
brought his eyes to bear on Miss Sally. She blinked once or twice, but
did not quail.

"'Tis strange!" he said. "I'm sure I left it in this room."

And he went again over all the ground he had already examined. Miss
Sally utilized the times when his back was turned, in making a search
of her own, the object of wh