Mrs. Huntington regarded Captain Ratlin’s intercourse with Maud with much interest, which she did not attempt to disguise, while her daughter did so under the disguise of indifference, but with the most intense interest.  Not a word, look, or sign between them betrayed the least token of any understanding or peculiar confidence as existing between the commander and the Quadroon.

Maud, on her part, began to change somewhat since the first day of the arrival of the strangers.  Then she was as free and unconstrained as innocence itself—­now she seemed to regard the new-comers with a jealous eye, for she saw the deep feeling evinced by the young commander towards the fairest of the two; she heard a strange charm in the tone of his voice when he addressed the daughter, and at such moments Mrs. Huntington more than once saw her bosom heave quickly, and her eye flash with a wild and startling fire that made her tremble.  This was jealousy, plain and unmistakable, a fact that no woman would have been at a loss to understand.

It was not possible that the mother should be blind to the feeling evinced by Captain Ratlin towards her daughter, and she thought, so long as this sentiment maintained the respectful and solicitous character which it now bore, that it would redound to their security and future safety, as they were in one sense completely in his power.  But as it regarded the idea of her daughter’s entertaining any affection for him, or seriously considering his advances, the idea could not for a moment enter her head.  She did not at ill consider that there was any danger of her daughter’s losing her heart—­no, no!  Had not she been accustomed to attention from earliest girlhood, and from the most polished men?  She did not even think it necessary to speak to her upon the subject; she might be as friendly as she pleased with him under the circumstances.

But the daughter herself, who to her mother’s eye was so indifferent, was at heart deeply and strangely impressed by the frank, chivalrous and devoted attention of the commander of the slaver.  His attention was characterized by the most unquestioned delicacy and consideration; he had never uttered the first syllable to her that he might not properly have used before her mother—­indeed, he had not the boldness or effrontery to urge a suit that he knew was out of the question, and yet he felt irresistibly drawn towards the English girl, and could not disguise from her the true sentiments that so plainly filled his inmost heart; she must have been less than woman not to have read his very soul, so bared to her scrutiny.

It was the first time that she had ever deceived her mother, because it was the first time that she had loved.  Yes, loved, for though she would as soon have sacrificed her life as to have acknowledged it, yet she did love him, and the poor untutored Quadroon girl read the fact that the mother could not, with all her cultivation and knowledge of the world, detect.  But jealousy is an apt teacher, and the spirit of Maud Leonardo was now thoroughly aroused; she sighed for revenge, and puzzled her brain how she might gain the longed-for end.