"I understand the force of your argument, Pamela. But you were going to say something more."
"Only, Sir, permit me to add, that when, in my particular case, you enjoin me to appear before you always dressed, even in the early part of the day, it would be wrong, if I was less regardful of my behaviour and actions, than of my appearance."
"I believe you are right, my dear, if a precise or unnecessary scrupulousness be avoided, and where all is unaffected, easy, and natural, as in my Pamela. For I have seen married ladies, both in England and France, who have kept a husband at a greater distance than they have exacted from some of his sex, who have been more entitled to his resentment, than to his wife's intimacies.
"But to wave a subject, in which, as I can with pleasure say, neither of us have much concern, tell me, my dearest, how you were employed before I came up? Here are pen and ink: here, too, is paper, but it is as spotless as your mind. To whom were you directing your favours now? May I not know your subject?"
Mr. H.'s letter was a part of it; and so I had put it by, at his approach, and not choosing he should see that—"I am writing," replied I, "to Miss Darnford: but I think you must not ask me to see what I have written this time. I put it aside that you should not, when I heard your welcome step. The subject is our parting with our noble guests; and a little of my apprehensiveness, on an occasion upon which our sex may write to one another; but, for some of the reasons we have been mentioning, gentlemen should not desire to see."
"Then I will not, my dearest love." (So here, my dear, is another instance—I could give you an hundred such—of his receding from his own will, in complaisance to mine.) "Only," continued he, "let me warn you against too much apprehensiveness, for your own sake, as well as mine; for such a mind as my Pamela's I cannot permit to be habitually over-clouded. And yet there now hangs upon your brow an over-thoughtfulness, which you must not indulge."
"Indeed, Sir, I was a little too thoughtful, from my subject, before you came; but your presence, like the sun, has dissipated the mists that hung upon my mind. See you not," and I pressed his hand with my lips, "they are all gone already?" smiling upon him with a delight unfeigned.
"Not quite, my dearest Pamela; and therefore, if you have no objection, I will change my dress, and attend you in the chariot for an hour or two, whither you please, that not one shadow may remain visible in this dear face;" tenderly saluting me.
"Whithersoever you please, Sir. A little airing with you will be highly agreeable to me."
The dear obliger went and changed his dress in an instant; and he led me to the chariot, with his usual tender politeness, and we had a charming airing of several miles; returning quite happy, cheerful, and delighted with each other's conversation, without calling in upon any of our good neighbours: for what need of that, my dear, when we could be the best company in the world to each other?