Your loving FATHER AND MOTHER.
Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for
you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for
it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty. Remember
that, Pamela.
Letter IX
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I am sorry to write you word, that the hopes I had of going to wait on
Lady Davers, are quite over. My lady would have had me; but my master,
as I heard by the by, would not consent to it. He said her nephew might
be taken with me, and I might draw him in, or be drawn in by him; and he
thought, as his mother loved me, and committed me to his care, he ought
to continue me with him; and Mrs. Jervis would be a mother to me. Mrs.
Jervis tells me the lady shook her head, and said, Ah! brother! and that
was all. And as you have made me fearful by your cautions, my heart
at times misgives me. But I say nothing yet of your caution, or my own
uneasiness, to Mrs. Jervis; not that I mistrust her, but for fear she
should think me presumptuous, and vain and conceited, to have any fears
about the matter, from the great distance between such a gentleman, and
so poor a girl. But yet Mrs. Jervis seemed to build something upon Lady
Davers's shaking her head, and saying, Ah! brother! and no more. God, I
hope, will give me his grace: and so I will not, if I can help it, make
myself too uneasy; for I hope there is no occasion. But every little
matter that happens, I will acquaint you with, that you may continue to
me your good advice, and pray for
Your sad-hearted PAMELA.
LETTER X
DEAR MOTHER,
You and my good father may wonder you have not had a letter from me in
so many weeks; but a sad, sad scene, has been the occasion of it. For to
be sure, now it is too plain, that all your cautions were well grounded.
O my dear mother! I am miserable, truly miserable!--But yet, don't be
frightened, I am honest!--God, of his goodness, keep me so!
O this angel of a master! this fine gentleman! this gracious benefactor
to your poor Pamela! who was to take care of me at the prayer of his
good dying mother; who was so apprehensive for me, lest I should be
drawn in by Lord Davers's nephew, that he would not let me go to Lady
Davers's: This very gentleman (yes, I must call him gentleman, though he
has fallen from the merit of that title) has degraded himself to offer
freedoms to his poor servant! He has now shewed himself in his true
colours; and, to me, nothing appear so black, and so frightful.