it shall be
thought proper. I am sure I shall act by her as tenderly as if I
was her own mother. And glad I am, that the poor unfaulty baby is so
justly beloved by Mr. B.

But I will here conclude this letter, with assuring your ladyship, and
I am _your obliged and humble servant,_

P.B.

LETTER XV

MY GOOD LADY,

I now come to your ladyship's remarks on my conduct to Mrs. Jewkes:
which you are pleased to think too kind and forgiving considering the
poor woman's baseness.

Your ladyship says, that I ought not to have borne her in my sight,
after the impudent assistance she gave to his lewd attempts; much less
to have left her in her place, and rewarded her. Alas! my dear lady,
what could I do? a poor prisoner as I was made, for weeks together, in
breach of all the laws of civil society; without a soul who durst be
my friend; and every day expecting to be ruined and undone, by one of
the haughtiest and most determined spirits in the world!--and when it
pleased God to turn his heart, and incline him to abandon his wicked
attempts, and to profess honourable love to me, his poor servant, can
it be thought I was to insist upon conditions with such a gentleman,
who had me in his power; and who, if I had provoked him, might have
resumed all his wicked purposes against me?

Indeed, I was too much overjoyed, after all my dangers past (which
were so great, that I could not go to rest, nor rise, but with such
apprehensions, that I wished for death rather than life), to think of
refusing any terms that I could yield to, and keep my honour.

And though such noble ladies, as your ladyship and Lady Betty, who are
born to independency, and are hereditarily, as I may say, on a foot
with the highest-descended gentleman in the land, might have exerted
a spirit, and would have a right to choose your own servants, and to
distribute rewards and punishments to the deserving and undeserving,
at your own good pleasure; yet what had I, a poor girl, who owed even
my title to common notice, to the bounty of my late good lady, and had
only a kind of imputed sightliness of person, though enough to make
me the subject of vile attempts; who, from a situation of terror and
apprehension, was lifted up to an hope, beyond my highest ambition,
and was bid to pardon the bad woman, as an instance, that I could
forgive his own hard usage of me; who had experienced so often the
violence and impetuosity of his temper, which even his beloved m