But I hope Pamela incapable of such
ingratitude.
Well, no more of this silly girl, says he; you may only advise her, as
you are her friend, not to give herself too much licence upon the favours
she meets with; and if she stays here, that she will not write the
affairs of my family purely for an exercise to her pen, and her
invention. I tell you she is a subtle, artful gipsy, and time will shew
it you.
Was ever the like heard, my dear father and mother? It is plain he did
not expect to meet with such a repulse, and mistrusts that I have told
Mrs. Jervis, and has my long letter too, that I intended for you; and so
is vexed to the heart. But I can't help it. I had better be thought
artful and subtle, than be so, in his sense; and, as light as he makes of
the words virtue and innocence in me, he would have made a less angry
construction, had I less deserved that he should do so; for then, may be,
my crime should have been my virtue with him naughty gentleman as he is!
I will soon write again; but must now end with saying, that I am, and
shall always be, Your honest DAUGHTER.
LETTER XV
DEAR MOTHER,
I broke off abruptly my last letter; for I feared he was coming; and so
it happened. I put the letter in my bosom, and took up my work, which
lay by me; but I had so little of the artful, as he called it, that I
looked as confused as if I had been doing some great harm.
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