“Make him love you?” repeated her aunt, dubiously. Her aunt had her own reasons for doubting the possibility of such an achievement.
“Perhaps you think I can’t!” cried Elizabeth. “Wait and see! But, heavens! He’s going away,—he won’t come back,—perhaps he’s gone! No, there’s his hat!” She ran and picked it up from the corner of the doorway. “He won’t go without his hat. He’ll have to come here for it. He went to his room for his sword. He’ll be here at any moment.”
And she paced the floor, holding the hat in one hand, and lapsing to the level of ordinary femininity as far as to adjust her hair with the other.
“You’ll have to make quick work of it, Elizabeth, dear,” said the aunt, with gentle irony, “if he’s going to-night.”
“I know, I know,—but I can’t do it looking like this.” She laid the hat on the table, in order to employ both hands in the arrangement of her hair. “If I only had on my satin gown! By the lord Harry, I have a mind—I will! When he comes in here, keep him till I return. Keep him as if your life depended on it.” She went quickly towards the door of the east hall.
“But, Elizabeth!” cried Miss Sally, appalled. “Wait! How—”
“How?” echoed Elizabeth, turning near the door. “By hook or crook! You must think of a way! I have other things on my mind. Only keep him till I come back. If you let him go, I’ll never speak to you again! And not a word to him of what I’ve told you! I sha’n’t be long.”
“But what are you going to do?” asked the aunt, despairingly.
“Going to arm myself for conquest! To put on my war-paint!” And the girl hastened through the doorway, crossed the hall, called Molly, and ran up-stairs to her room.