Steggison says to himself with a Satanic joy:
"Noo all s'll get a chance at post-bag. She promised me ah sewd 'ave fost try at it if owt 'appened 'er. Mah wod! Bud ah 'll gie 'em James Maskell an' all. They 'll 'a t' run when ah call of 'em—ne'er mind if they weean't!"
And James Maskill stands forlornly with his back propped against the post-house bricks, and a heel hitched up to the wall beneath him, and his hands in his pockets, and his mouth screwed to a spiritless whistle that can't produce the ghost of a sound; staring at nothing, and thinking of nothing; and feeling nothing—for life in front of him is nothing now, and he would n't have the heart to fetch Dingwall Jackson his promised bat across the lug, even if you caught him and held his head up for the purpose.
And Emma Morland is bursting with pride, and weeping with the misery of losing Pam—for this fashionable interment of Pam in the classic vaults of High Society fills her with a more terrible sense of their severance than a little green grave in Ullbrig churchyard.
And the postmaster makes an impressive chief mourner, standing by the counter with set face and lowered eyes as though it were a coffin, and telling his daughter, when she comes hither to embarrass him with her demonstrations of grief:
"It 's all for t' best, lass no doot. We s'll larn to get ower it i' time."
And Mrs. Morland, her mingled gladness and sorrow commingling to reminiscence, tells, through fond tears, how Pam did this, and Pam did that; and how she 'd always thought of others before herself; and what a strange sad house it would be without her—and wept herself into perspirations, and wiped her tears and her steaming forehead with large double sweeps of her apron. And Ginger went off his food again—for though she 'd never been his, at each new name with which hers was coupled, he felt once more as though he 'd just lost her.
And Pam went dancing up to Cliff Wrangham that day, hugging his Reverence's arm—as sad as any of them, and so joyful that it seemed not earth she trod on, but the big round prismatic blown bubble of a dream, shivering warningly, all ready to puff into nothing and let her down into nowhere. And when they came to Dixon's, Pam went into the little parlor, and looked at the Spawer, and said, "Oh, Morrie!" in a doleful voice of preparation. For, to tell the truth, though she was come here intended to play a little comedy on him, with a triumphant dénouement, her own conviction in things actual (including, for the time, their own happiness) had been so surprisingly shaken that, despite her errand's being presumably of gladness, she looked, as she looked at him, for all the world as though she had seen a ghost.
"Good gracious, darling!" said the Spawer, in concern, when he saw her. "Whatever 's been happening now?"
"Oh, Maurice!" said Pam again, trying hard to win back assurance that he and she were not two mere unsubstantial figments of somebody else's dream, but flesh and blood, and dear and bend to each other. "I 've something to tell you, dear—I mean, to ask you, dear. Do you love me?"