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morning, before it is light; not doubting your kind pro'mise of excusing everything and everybody.

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'I beg, dear sir, you will take care your health suffers not by your sitting up; for the nights are cold and damp.

'I will, now you have given me the liberty, let Mrs. Jervis know how happy you have made me, by dissipating 'my fears and the idle rumours, as I shall call them to her, ' of calumniators.

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'God bless you, dear sir! for your goodness and favour to 'Your ever-dutiful

He was pleased to return me this:

'P. B.

'MY DEAREST LIFE,-You need not be in such haste to 'send. If you write to Lady Davers how the matter has

ended, let me see the copy of it; and be very particular in your, or rather my trial. It shall be a standing lesson to 'me for my future instruction; as it will be a fresh demon'stration of your excellence, which every hour I more and 'more admire. I am glad Lady Davers only knows the " matter. I think I ought to avoid seeing you, till I can assure you that everything is accommodated to your desire. Longman has sent me some advices, which will make it proper for me to meet him at Bedford or Gloucester. I 'will not go to Tunbridge till I have all your papers; and so you'll have three days' time to procure them. Your boy, and your penmanship, will find you no disagreeable employment till I return. Nevertheless, on second thoughts, 'I will do myself the pleasure of breakfasting with you in 'the morning, to reassure you of my unalterable purpose to " approve myself,

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'My dearest life,

'Ever faithfully yours.'

Thus, I hope, is happily ended this dreadful affair. My next shall inform your ladyship of the particulars of our

VOL. III.

breakfast conversation. But I would not slip this post without acquainting you with this blessed turn; and to beg the favour of you to send me back my letters; which will lay a new obligation upon,

Dear madam,

Your obliged sister, and humble servant,

P. B

LETTER LXXV.

Mrs. B to Lady Davers.

MY DEAREST LADY,-Your joyful correspondent has obtained leave to get everything ready to quit London by Friday next, when your kind brother promises to carry me down to Kent, and allows me to take my charmer with me. There's happiness for you, madam! To see, as I hope I shall see, upon one blessed spot, a dear faithful husband, a beloved child, and a father and mother whom I so much love and honour!

Mr. B- told me this voluntarily this morning at breakfast; and then, in the kindest manner, took leave of me, and set out for Bedfordshire.

But I should, according to my promise, give your ladyship a few particulars of our breakfast conference.

I bid Polly withdraw when her master came up to breakfast; and I ran to the door to meet him, and threw myself on my knees: Oh, forgive me, dearest, dear sir, all my boldness of yesterday!-My heart was strangely affected—or I could not have acted as I did. But never fear, my dearest Mr. B, that my future conduct shall be different from what it used to be, or that I shall keep up to a spirit, which you hardly thought had place in the heart of your dutiful Pamela, till she was thus severely tried.

I have weighed well your conduct, my dear life, raising

me to his bosom; and I find a uniformity in it that is surprisingly just.

There is in your composition, indeed, the strangest mixture of meekness and high spirit that ever I met with. Never was a saucier dear girl than you, in your maiden days, when you thought your honour in danger: never a more condescending goodness, when your fears were at an end. Now again, when you had reason, as you believed, to apprehend a conduct in me, unworthy of my obligations to you and of your purity, you rise in your spirit, with a dignity that becomes an injured person; and yet you forget not, in the height of your resentments, that angelic sweetness of temper, and readiness to forgive, which so well become a lady who lives as you live, and practises what you practise. My dearest Pamela, I see, continued he, serves not God for nought: In a better sense I speak it, than the maligner spoke it of Job; since in every action of yours, the heavenly direction you so constantly invoke, shows itself thus beautifully.

And now again, this charming condescension, the moment you are made easy, is an assurance that your affectionate sweetness is returned: and I cannot fear anything, but that I shall never be able to deserve it.

He led me to the tea-table, and sat down close by me. Polly came in. If everything, said he, be here that your lady wants, you may withdraw; and let Colbrand and Abraham know I shall be with them presently. Nobody shall wait upon me but you, my dear.

Polly withdrew.

You are all goodness, sir: And how generously, how kindly do you account for that mixture in my temper you speak of!-Depend upon it, dear sir, that I will never grow upon this your indulgence.

I always loved you, my dearest, said he; and that with a passionate fondness which has not, I daresay, many examples in the married life: but I revere you now. And so great is my reverence for your virtue, that I chose to sit up all night, as I now do to leave you for a few days, until, by dis

terms.

engaging myself from all intercourses that have given you uneasiness, I can convince you that I have rendered myself as worthy as I can be of such an angel, even upon your own I will account to you, continued he, for every step I shall take, and will reveal to you every step I have taken: for this I can do, because the lady's honour is untainted, and wicked rumour has treated her worse than she could deserve.

I told him, that since he had been pleased to name the lady, I would take the liberty to say, I was glad, for her own sake, to hear that. Changing the subject a little precipitately, as if it gave him pain, he told me, as above, that I might prepare on Friday for Kent; and I parted with him with greater pleasure than ever I did in my life. So necessary sometimes are afflictions, not only to teach one how to subdue one's passions, and to make us, in our happiest states, know we are still on earth, but even, when they are overblown, to augment and redouble our joys!

I am now giving orders for my journey, and quitting this undelightful town, as it has been, and is, to me. My next will be from Kent, I hope; and perhaps I shall then have an opportunity to acquaint your ladyship with the particulars, and (if God answer my prayers) the conclusion of the affair which has given me so much uneasiness.

Meantime I am, with the greatest gratitude for the kind share you have taken in my past afflictions, my good lady, Your ladyship's

Most obliged sister and servant,

P. B———.

LETTER LXXVI.

Lady Davers to Mrs. B--.

MY DEAREST PAMELA,-Enclosed are all the letters you send for. I rejoice with you upon the turn this afflicting affair has taken, through your inimitable prudence, and a courage I thought not in you.-A wretch-to give you so much discomposure!-But I will not, if he be good now, rave against him, as I was going to do-I am impatient to hear what account he gives of the matter. I hope he will be able to abandon this-I won't call her names; for she loves the wretch; and that, if he be just to you, will be her punishment.

What care ought these young widows to take of their reputation! And how watchful ought they to be over themselves! She was hardly out of her weeds, and yet must go to a masquerade, and tempt her fate, with all her passions about her, with an independence and an affluence of fortune that made her able to think of nothing but gratifying them.

Then her lord and she had been married but barely two years; and one of them she was forced, with the gayest temper in the world, to be his nurse: for always inclined. to a consumptive indisposition, he languished, without hope, a twelvemonth, and then died.

She has good qualities-is generous-noble-but has strong passions, and is thoughtless and precipitant.

My lord came home to me last Tuesday, with a long story of my brother and her; for I had kept the matter as secret as I could, for his sake and yours. It seems he had it from Sir John, uncle to the young Lord C, who is very earnest to bring on a treaty of marriage between her and his nephew, who is in love with her, and is a fine young gentleman; but has held back on the liberties she has lately given herself with my brother.

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