But I am making another long letter, so will only add to it, that I shall ever be your dutiful daughter.
PAMELA ANDREWS
II.--Twelve Months Later
MY 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. But yet, don't be frightened, I am honest, and I hope God, in his goodness, will 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! 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 showed himself in his true colours, and, to me, nothing appears so black and so frightful.
I have not been idle; but had writ from time to time, how he, by sly, mean degrees, exposed his wicked views, but somebody stole my letter, and I know not what is become of it. I am watched very narrowly; and he says to Mrs. Jervis, the housekeeper, "This girl is always scribbling; I think she may be better employed." And yet I work very hard with my needle upon his linen and the fine linen of the family; and am, besides, about flowering him a waistcoat. But, oh, my heart's almost broken; for what am I likely to have for any reward but shame and disgrace, or else ill words and hard treatment!
As I can't find my letter, I'll try to recollect it all. All went well enough in the main, for some time. But one day he came to me as I was in the summer-house in the little garden at work with my needle, and Mrs. Jervis was just gone from me, and I would have gone out, but he said, "Don't go, Pamela, I have something to say to you, and you always fly me when I come near you, as if you were afraid of me."
I was much out of countenance you may well think, and began to tremble, and the more when he took me by the hand, for no soul was near us.
"You are a little fool," he said hastily, "and know not what's good for yourself. I tell you I will make a gentlewoman of you if you are obliging, and don't stand in your own light." And so saying, he put his arm about me and kiss'd me.
Now, you will say, all his wickedness appear'd plainly. I burst from him, and was getting out of the summer-house, but he held me back, and shut the door.