kindness would make me forget what I owe to my virtue: but, sir, I may, I
find, be made more miserable by such acts, than by terror; because my
nature is too frank and open to make me wish to be ungrateful: and if I
should be taught a lesson I never yet learnt, with what regret should I
descend to the grave, to think that I could not hate my undoer: and that,
at the last great day, I must stand up as an accuser of the poor unhappy
soul, that I could wish it in my power to save!

Exalted girl! said he, what a thought is that!--Why, now, Pamela, you
excel yourself! You have given me a hint that will hold me long. But,
sweet creature, said he, tell me what is this lesson, which you never yet
learnt, and which you are so afraid of learning?

If, sir, said I, you will again generously spare my confusion, I need not
speak it: But this I will say, in answer to the question you seem most
solicitous about, that I know not the man breathing that I would wish to
be married to, or that ever I thought of with such an idea. I had
brought my mind so to love poverty, that I hoped for nothing but to
return to the best, though the poorest of parents; and to employ myself
in serving God, and comforting them; and you know not, sir, how you
disappointed those hopes, and my proposed honest pleasures, when you sent
me hither.

Well then, said he, I may promise myself, that neither the parson, nor
any other man, is any the least secret motive to your steadfast refusal
of my offers? Indeed, sir, said I, you may; and, as you was pleased to
ask, I answer, that I have not the least shadow of a wish, or thought,
for any man living.

But, said he, (for I am foolishly jealous, and yet it shews my fondness