d her natural
love of independence and domination. Yet that very love, in a woman,
may afford its owner keen delight by receiving quick and confident
opposition and conquest from a man, and such Elizabeth's had received
from Peyton, both in the matter of the horse and in that of his
successful wooing. But the greater her softness for him, the greater
was her delicacy regarding him, and the more in conformity with the
strictest propriety must be her conduct towards him. Her pride
demanded this tribute of her love, in compensation for the latter's
immense exactions on the former in the sudden yielding to his wooing.
Moreover, she would not appear in anything short of perfection in his
eyes. She would not make her company cheap to him. If she had been a
quick conquest, up to the point of her first token of submission, she
would be all the slower in the subsequent stages, so that the
complete yielding should be no easier than ought to be that of one
valued as she would have him value her. All this she felt rather than
thought, and she acted on it punctiliously.

She did not confide in her aunt, though that lady watched her closely
and had her suspicions. Yet there was apparent so little warrant for
these suspicions, save the protection of the rebel in itself, that
Miss Sally often imagined Elizabeth had other reasons, reasons of
policy, for the sudden change of intention that had resulted in that
protection. Elizabeth's conduct was always so mystifying to everybody!
And when this thought possessed Miss Sally, she underwent a pleasing
agitation, which she in turn kept secret, and which attended the hope
that perhaps the handsome captain might not be averse to her
conversation. She had both read and observed that the taste of youth
sometimes was for ripeness. She might atone, in a measure, for
Elizabeth's disdain. She would have liked to visit him daily, with
condolence and comfortings, but she could not do so without previous
sanction of the mistress of the house, which sanction Elizabeth
briefly but very peremptorily refused. Miss Sally thought it a cruelty
that the prisoner should be deprived of what consolation her society
might afford, and dwelt on this opinion until she became convinced he
was actually pining for her presence. This made her poutish and
reproachfully silent to Elizabeth, and sighful and whimsical to
herself. The slightly strained feeling that arose between aunt and
niece was quite acceptable to Elizabet