shall observe my orders."

"You will not, I hope," replied I, "do an unlawful or wicked thing for
any master in the world."

"Look ye!" said she. "He is my master, and if he bids me do a thing that
I _can_ do, I think I _ought_ to do it; and let him, who has power to
command me, look to the _lawfulness_ of it."

"Suppose," said I, "he should resolve to ensnare a poor young creature
and ruin her, would you assist him in such wickedness? And do you not
think that to rob a person of her virtue is worse than cutting her
throat?"

"Why, now," said she, "how strangely you talk! Are not the two sexes
made for each other? And is it not natural for a man to love a pretty
woman?" And then the wretch fell a-laughing, and talk'd most
impertinently, and show'd me that I had nothing to expect either from
her virtue or compassion.

_I am now come to the twenty-seventh day of my imprisonment_. One
stratagem I have just thought of, though attended with this discouraging
circumstance that I have neither friends, nor money, nor know one step
of the way were I actually out of the house. But let bulls and bears and
lions and tigers and, what is worse, false, treacherous, deceitful man
stand in my way, I cannot be in more danger than I now think myself in.

Mrs. Jewkes has received a letter. She tells me, as a secret, that she
has reason to think my master has found a way to satisfy my scruples. It
is by marrying me to his dreadful Swiss servant, Colbrand, and buying me
of him on the wedding-day for a sum of money! Was ever the like heard?
She says it will be my duty to obey my husband, and that when my master
has paid for me, and I am surrender'd up, the Swiss is to go home again,
with the money, to his former wife and children; for, she says, it is
the custom of these people to have a wife in every nation.

But this, to be sure, is horrid romancing!

_Friday, the thirty-sixth day of imprisonment_. Mercy on me! What will
become of me? Here is my master come in his fine chariot! What shall I
do? Where shall I hide myself?

He has entered and come up!

He put on a stern and a haughty air. "Well, perverse Pamela, ungrateful
creature, you do well, don't you, to give me all this trouble and
vexation?"

I could not speak, but sobb'd and sigh'd, as if my heart would break.
"Sir," I said, "permit me to return to my parents. That is all I have to
ask."

He flew into a violent passion. "Is it thus," said he, "I am to be
answered? Beg