liams's charge."

"If I go back before the captain leaves," said Elizabeth, thereby
dashing her amiable aunt's secretly cherished hope of affording the
wounded officer the pleasure of her own unalloyed society.

Elizabeth really did not know what she would do. Her actions, on
Colden's return, would depend on the prior actions of the captain. No
one had spoken to Peyton of her intention to leave after a week's
stay. She had thought such an announcement to him from her might seem
to imply a hint that it was time he should resume his wooing. That he
would resume it, in due course, she took for granted. Measuring his
supposed feelings by her own real ones, she assumed that her loveless
betrothal to another would not deter Peyton's further courtship. She
believed he had divined the nature of that betrothal. Nor would he be
hindered by the prospect of their being parted some while by the war.
Engagements were broken, wars did not last forever, those who loved
each other found ways to meet. So he would surely speak, before their
parting, of what, since it filled her heart, must of course fill his.
But she would show no forwardness in the matter. She therefore avoided
him till dinner-time.

At the table he abruptly announced that, as duty required he should
rejoin the army at the first moment possible, and as he now felt
capable of making the journey, he would depart that night.

Miss Sally hid her startled emotions behind a glass of madeira, into
which she coughed, chokingly. Molly, the maid, stopped short in her
passage from the kitchen door to the table, and nearly dropped the
pudding she was carrying. Elizabeth concealed her feelings, and told
herself that his declaration must soon be forthcoming. She left it to
him to contrive the necessary private interview.

After dinner, he sat with the ladies before the fire in the east
parlor, awaiting his opportunity with much hidden perturbation.
Elizabeth feigned to read. At last, habit prevailing, her aunt fell
asleep. Peyton hummed and hemmed, looked into the fire, made two or
three strenuous swallows of nothing, and opened his mouth to speak. At
that instant old Mr. Valentine came in, newly arrived from the Hill,
and "whew"-ing at the cold. Peyton felt like one for whom a brief
reprieve had been sent by heaven.

All afternoon Mr. Valentine chattered of weather and news and old
times. Peyton's feeling of relief was short-lasting; it was supplanted
by a mighty regret that h