This way of talking pleased them both very much; and they made me many

compliments upon it, and wished me always to be happy, as, they said, I

so well deserved. We were thus engaged, when my master, and his sister and her nephew,

came in: and they made me quite alive, in the happy humour in which they

all returned. The two women would have withdrawn: but my master said,

Don't go, Mrs. Worden: Mrs. Jewkes, pray stay; I shall speak to you

presently. So he came to me, and, saluting me, said, Well, my dear love,

I hope I have not trespassed upon your patience, by an absence longer

than we designed. But it has not been to your disadvantage; for though

we had not your company, we have talked of nobody else but you.

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My lady came up to me, and said, Ay, child, you have been all our

subject. I don't know how it is: but you have made two or three good

families, in this neighbourhood, as much your admirers, as your friend

here. My sister, said he, has been hearing your praises, Pamela, from half

a score mouths, with more pleasure than her heart will easily let her

express. My good Lady Davers's favour, said I, and the continuance of yours,

sir, would give me more pride than that of all the rest of the world put

together. Well, child, said she, proud hearts don't come down all at once; though

my brother, here, has this day set mine a good many pegs lower than I

ever knew it: But I will say, I wish you joy with my brother; and so

kissed me. My dear lady, said I, you for ever oblige me!--I shall now believe

myself quite happy. This was all I wanted to make me so!--And I hope I

shall always, through my life, shew your ladyship, that I have the most

grateful and respectful sense of your goodness.

But, child, said she, I shall not give you my company when you make your

appearance. Let your own merit make all your Bedfordshire neighbours

your friends, as it has done here, by your Lincolnshire ones; and you'll

have no need of my countenance, nor any body's else.

Now, said her nephew, 'tis my turn: I wish you joy with all my soul,

madam; and, by what I have seen, and by what I have heard, 'fore Gad, I

think you have met with no more than you deserve; and so all the company

says, where we have been: And pray forgive all my nonsense to you.

Sir, said I, I shall always, I hope, respect as I ought, so near a

relation of my good Lord and Lady Davers; and I thank you for your kind

compliment. Gad, Beck, said he, I believe you've some forgiveness too to ask; for we

were all to blame, to make madam, here, fly the pit, as she did. Little

did we think we made her quit her own house. Thou always, said my lady, sayest too much, or too little. Mrs. Worden said, I have been treated with so much goodness and

condescension since you went, that I have been beforehand, sir, in

asking pardon myself.




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