me all: but she believed he would never offer any thing to me again; and
I might stay, she fancied, if I would beg it as a favour; though she was
not sure neither.

I stay! dear Mrs. Jervis; said I; why it is the best news that could have
come to me, that he will let me go. I do nothing but long to go back
again to my poverty and distress, as he threatened I should; for though I
am sure of the poverty, I shall not have half the distress I have had for
some months past, I'll assure you.

Mrs. Jervis, dear good soul! wept over me, and said, Well, well, Pamela,
I did not think I had shewn so little love to you, as that you should
express so much joy upon leaving me. I am sure I never had a child half
so dear to me as you are.

I went to hear her so good to me, as indeed she has always been, and
said, What would you have me to do, dear Mrs. Jervis? I love you next to
my own father and mother, and to leave you is the chief concern I have at
quitting this place; but I am sure it is certain ruin if I stay. After
such offers, and such threatenings, and his comparing himself to a wicked
ravisher in the very time of his last offer; and turning it into a jest,
that we should make a pretty story in a romance; can I stay and be safe?
Has he not demeaned himself twice? And it behoves me to beware of the
third time, for fear he should lay his snares surer; for perhaps he did
not expect a poor servant would resist her master so much. And must it
not be looked upon as a sort of warrant for such actions, if I stay after
this? For, I think, when one of our sex finds she is attempted, it is an
encouragement to the attempter to proceed, if one puts one's self in the
way of it, when one can help it: 'Tis neither more nor less than inviting
him to think that one forgives, what, in short, ought not to be forgiven: