er in repentant tears, as
one would expect, she took your angry letter for a jocular one; and
I had great difficulty to convince her of the heinousness of _her_
fault, or the reality of your resentment. Upon which, being determined
to have justice done to my friend, and a due sense of her own great
error impressed upon her, I began thus:

"Pamela, take heed that you do not suffer the purity of your own mind,
in breach of your charity, to make you too rigorous a censurer
of other people's actions: don't be so puffed up with your own
perfections, as to imagine, that, because other persons allow
themselves liberties you cannot take, _therefore_ they must be wicked.
Sir Simon is a gentleman who indulges himself in a pleasant vein, and,
I believe, as well as you, _has been_ a great rake and libertine:"
(You'll excuse me, Sir Simon, because I am taking your part), "but
what then? You see it is all over with him now. He says, that he
_must_, and therefore he _will_ be virtuous: and is a man for ever to
hear the faults of his youth, when so willing to forget them?"

"Ah! but, Sir, Sir," said the bold slut, "can you say he is _willing_
to forget them?--Does he not repine in this very letter, that
he _must_ forsake them; and does he not plainly cherish the
_inclination_, when he owns--" She hesitated--"Owns what?"--"You know
what I mean. Sir, and I need not speak it: and can there well be a
more censurable character?--Then before his maiden daughters! his
virtuous lady! _before_ any body!--What a sad thing is this, at a time
of life, which should afford a better example!

"But, dear Sir," continued the bold prattler, (taking advantage of
a silence more owing to displeasure than approbation) "let me, for
I would not be too _censorious_" (No, not she! in the very act of
censoriousness to say this!), "let me offer but one thing: don't
you think Sir Simon himself would be loth to be thought a reformed
gentleman? Don't you see his delight, when speaking of his former
pranks, as if sorry he could not play them over again? See but how he
simpers, and _enjoys_, as one may say, the relations of his own rakish
actions, when he tells a bad story!"

"But," said I, "were this the case" (for I profess, Sir Simon, I was
at a grievous loss to defend you), "for you to write all these free
things against a father to his daughter, is that right, Pamela?"

"O, Sir! the good gentleman himself has taken care, that such a
character as I presumed