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 Elizabeth, as it gave her freedom for her own dreams, and prohibited any occasion for an expression of feelings or opinions of her own as to the captain. But Miss Sally's symptoms were observed by old Mr. Valentine, who, inferring their cause, underwent much unrest on account of them, became snappish and sarcastic towards the lady, watchful both of her and of Peyton, and moody towards the others in the house. It was the old man's disquietude regarding the state of Miss Sally's affections that brought him to the house every day. For one brief while he considered the advisability of transferring his attentions back from Miss Sally to the widow Babcock, who had possessed them first, but, when he tarried in the parsonage, his fears as to what might be going on in the manor-house made his stay in the former intolerable, and led him irresistibly to the latter.