And so it ended. Pamela went to the barn dance, after all, and danced in vast condescension with several agreeable young farmers. Jocelyn Bellairs got the rector to introduce him to Mrs. Pounce, and sitting beside that lady, made himself so agreeable that she was, as she expressed it, quite in a twitter. Mindful of his word passed to Sir Jasper, he did not again approach Pamela, but the gaze with which he followed her about the long room was eloquent enough. When the little Pounces had nearly yawned themselves off the benches, and Pamela’s poppet, Peg, had gone to sleep outright, her curly head on her mother’s ample lap, it was the elegant young gentleman who conducted Mrs. Pounce to the waiting farm cart, with as much courtesy as if he were leading a duchess to her barouche. The moon was set. The courtyard was fitfully illumined by torches thrust into clamps in the wall, and by the shifting rays of the lanterns carried by the revellers. As Pamela, standing by the cart, lifted Peg up to her mother’s extended arms, while Mr. Bellairs obligingly held the lantern, Sir Jasper’s curricle wheeled slowly into the yard drawn by a pair of fairly exhausted thoroughbreds. Without stirring from his high seat, the reins slipping from his hands, Sir Jasper stared at the picture painted on the night as at some spectral vision. “Why, here’s Sir Jasper!” cried an obsequious voice. “Three cheers for Sir Jasper, lads!” Perhaps because his appearance had been as unexpected as his disappearance, perhaps because the sight of his dreadful face of wrath, flamingly illumined by the red glare of a torch was enough to choke off any demonstration, perhaps because he was too unpopular a landlord even for so many glasses of negus and so many mince-pies to counterbalance--however it may have been, there was but a poor response; a faint cry, that rose and quavered away. It was almost more deadly in its effect than an execration. Sir Jasper rolled a bloodshot eye upon his tenants and neighbours. “Blast you all!” he cried huskily, let himself drop from his seat, and reeled towards the house. * * * * * On New Year’s day Pamela returned to London, and, on the day after, a summons to Yeoman Pounce to attend at Mr. Grinder’s office in Canterbury caused some perturbation to the inmates of Little Pitfold. But when he returned he brought astounding intelligence. “You’ll never believe it, wife!” he cried from the threshold, “but the mortgage is paid off! Buss me, mother, we’re free of our own again!” “Oh, ’tis our Pam! ’Tis that best of children! Oh, the surprise, father! Oh, the slyness of it, never telling us a word! Oh, was there ever so good a girl?”