should make no scruple in obeying me.

"So I thought I would way-lay the girl, and carry her first to
a little village in Northamptonshire, to an acquaintance of Mrs.
Jewkes's. And when I had brought her to be easy and pacified a little,
I designed that Jewkes should attend her to Lincolnshire: for I knew
there was no coming at her here, under my mother's wing, by her
own consent, and that to offer terms to her, would be to blow up my
project all at once. Besides, I was sensible, that Mrs. Jervis would
stand in the way of my proceedings as well as my mother.

"The method I had contrived was quite easy, as I imagined, and such
as could not have failed to answer my purpose, as to carrying her off;
and I doubted not of making her well satisfied in her good fortune
very quickly; for, having a notion of her affectionate duty to her
parents, I was not displeased that I could make the terms very easy
and happy to them all.

"What most stood in my way, was my mother's fondness for her: but
supposing I had got her favourite in my hands, which appeared to me,
as I said, a task very easy to be conquered, I had actually formed a
letter for her to transcribe, acknowledging a love-affair, and laying
her withdrawing herself so privately, to an implicit obedience to her
husband's commands, to whom she was married that morning, and who,
being a young gentleman of genteel family, and dependent on his
friends, was desirous of keeping it all a profound secret; and
begging, on that account, her lady not to divulge it, so much as to
Mrs. Jervis.

"And to prepare for this, and make her escape the more probable, when
matters were ripe for my plot, I came in one night, and examined all
the servants, and Mrs. Jervis, the latter in my mother's hearing,
about a genteel young man, whom I pretended to find with a pillion on
the horse he rode upon, waiting about the back door of the garden, for
somebody to come to him; and who rode off, when I came up to the door,
as fast as he could. Nobody knew any thing of the matter, and they
were much surprised at what I told them: but I begged Pamela might be
watched, and that no one would say any thing to her about it.

"My mother said, she had two reasons not to speak of it to Pamela:
one to oblige me: the other and chief, because it would break the poor
innocent girl's heart, to be suspected. 'Poor dear child!' said
she, 'whither can she go, to be so happy as with me? Would it not be
inevitable ruin