Some ten minutes later he was bowling along the frozen road at the highest speed of his roughed horses, an astounded groom beside him. Purpose was setting in his mind as hard as the ice in the ditches. There was no time like the present. He had a slippery pair of young rascals to deal with. If he was to win his wager he must carry off the girl this very night. * * * * * He laid his plans with a wiliness which is not infrequently a characteristic of gross natures. Conscious in himself of a fine capacity for evil, such as he will be suspicious of every one and everything; look for treachery from his most trusted friend, and infidelity in the wife of his bosom. He dismounted at the farmyard gate, and bade Job Stallion, the groom, drive in alone and announce that Sir Jasper Standish had sent the curricle for Miss Pounce, as it was her father and mother’s pleasure she should come to the dance. The ruse succeeded with a facility beyond his expectations. Pamela had been finding the lonely evening disconsolate enough. Baby Tom slept, while old Nance displayed uncommon wakefulness. The time was heavy on Pamela’s hands, and to while it away she had had the happy thought of trying on the pretty garments which she had prepared before Mr. Bellairs’ appearance in church had made a call upon her prudence. Now the reaction which so often follows self-sacrifice had set in. She was beginning to call herself a fool, and to regret her excessive discretion. Thus when old Nance laboured, panting, to the attic chamber, and supplemented Job’s message with: “You’d never think of saying nay now, Pam, my dear. Ain’t it Providence you should just have been fitting on? And, oh, to be sure, was there ever so pure lovely a gown? You’ll be the belle o’ the ball, my dearie, that you will, and easy!” Pamela never hesitated at all. She caught her travelling-cloak off the peg, and lifted her best feathered hat from its bandbox--how could a milliner resist such an opportunity?--pinned it on her auburn curls, cast herself headlong down the stairs, out through the farm kitchen like a whirlwind, and laughing, swung herself up on the curricle beside the grinning Joe. She was rather taken aback when this latter halted outside the farmyard gate, and a portly figure appeared from the shadow of the oak tree. Hat in hand, Sir Jasper pleasantly saluted her. “Why, Miss Pounce, this is capital. Your father and mother vowed you’d never come, but I said I was sure so good a daughter would be obedient to her parents. Nevertheless”--he was climbing up beside her in the high seat, while Job shut the gates behind them--“I was ready, you see, to exercise a neighbour’s persuasion, should you persist in your cruel resolve. The ball would be nothing without you, ’pon honour. There are half a dozen fine young bucks with faces as long as my whip-handle already.”