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 which was a safe place where she could quickly deposit the hat without attracting his attention. Peyton was doubly annoyed at this enforced delay in his departure, since Elizabeth might come into the parlor at any time, and the meeting occur which he had, for a moment, hoped to avoid. "Would you mind helping me look for it?" said he. "I'm in great haste to be gone. Do me the kindness, madam, will you not?" "Why, yes, with pleasure," she answered, thinking bitterly how transported she would be, in other circumstances, at such an opportunity of showing her readiness to oblige him. Her aid consisted in following him about, looking in each place where he had looked the moment before, and keeping the sought-for object close behind her. Suddenly he turned about, with such swiftness that she almost came into collision with him. "It must have fallen to the floor," said he. "Why, yes, we never thought of looking there, did we?" And she followed him through another tour of the room, turning her averted head from side to side in pretendedly ranging the floor with her eyes.