he believes, was pleading for you, Say no more,
Mrs. Jervis; for by G--d I will have her! Burn this instantly.'

O pray for your poor daughter. I am called to go to bed by Mrs. Jervis,
for it is past eleven; and I am sure she shall hear of it; for all this
is owing to her, though she did not mean any harm. But I have been, and
am, in a strange fluster; and I suppose too, she'll say, I have been
full pert.

O my dear father and mother, power and riches never want advocates! But,
poor gentlewoman, she cannot live without him: and he has been very good
to her.

So good night. May be I shall send this in the morning; but may be not;
so won't conclude: though I can't say too often, that I am (though with
great apprehension)

Your most dutiful DAUGHTER.

LETTER XXV

MY DEAR PARENTS,

O let me take up my complaint, and say, Never was poor creature so
unhappy, and so barbarously used, as poor Pamela! Indeed, my dear father
and mother, my heart's just broke! I can neither write as I should do,
nor let it alone, for to whom but you can I vent my griefs, and keep my
poor heart from bursting! Wicked, wicked man!--I have no patience when
I think of him!--But yet, don't be frightened--for--I hope--I hope, I am
honest!--But if my head and my hand will let me, you shall hear all.--Is
there no constable, nor headborough, though, to take me out of his
house? for I am sure I can safely swear the peace against him: But,
alas! he is greater than any constable: he is a justice himself: Such a
justice deliver me from!--But God Almighty, I hope, in time, will right
me--For he knows the innocence of my heart!

John went your way in the morning; but I have been too much distracted
to send by him; and have seen nobody but Mrs. Jervis or Rachel, and
one I hate to see or be seen by and indeed I hate now to see any body.
Strange things I have to tell you, that happened since last night, that
good Mr. Jonathan's letter, and my master's harshness, put me into such
a fluster; but I will not keep you in suspense.

I went to Mrs. Jervis's chamber; and, O dreadful! my wicked master had
hid himself, base gentleman as he is! in her closet, where she has a
few books, and chest of drawers, and such like. I little suspected it;
though I used, till this sad night, always to look into that closet
and another in the room, and under the bed, ever since the summer-house
trick; but never found any thing; and so I did not do it