ordinary an occasion, against so rich
and so resolute a gentleman; and being afraid to make matters worse,
(though they saw plainly enough, that she was in no bishop's family,
and so mistrusted all the rest of his story,) they applied themselves
to prayers for their poor daughter, and for an happy issue to an affair
that almost distracted them.

We shall now leave the honest old pair praying for their dear Pamela,
and return to the account she herself gives of all this; having written
it journal-wise, to amuse and employ her time, in hopes some opportunity
might offer to send it to her friends; and, as was her constant view,
that she might afterwards thankfully look back upon the dangers she had
escaped, when they should be happily overblown, as in time she hoped
they would be; and that then she might examine, and either approve or
repent of her own conduct in them.

LETTER XXXII

O MY DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER!

Let me write, and bewail my miserable hard fate, though I have no hope
how what I write can be conveyed to your hands!--I have now nothing to
do, but write and weep, and fear and pray! But yet what can I hope for,
when I seem to be devoted, as a victim to the will of a wicked violator
of all the laws of God and man!--But, gracious Heaven, forgive me my
rashness and despondency! O let me not sin against thee; for thou best
knowest what is fittest for thy poor handmaid!--And as thou sufferest
not thy poor creatures to be tempted above what they can bear, I will
resign myself to thy good pleasure: And still, I hope, desperate as my
condition seems, that as these trials are not of my own seeking, nor
the effects of my presumption and vanity, I shall be enabled to overcome
them, and, in God's own good time, be delivered from them.

Thus do I pray imperfectly, as I am forced by my distracting fears and
apprehensions; and O join with me, my dear parents!--But, alas! how can
you know, how can I reveal to you, the dreadful situation of your poor
daughter! The unhappy Pamela may be undone (which God forbid, and sooner
deprive me of life!) before you can know her hard lot!

O the unparalleled wickedness, stratagems, and devices, of those who
call themselves gentlemen, yet pervert the design of Providence, in
giving them ample means to do good, to their own everlasting perdition,
and the ruin of poor oppressed innocence!

But now I will tell you what has befallen me; and yet, how shall you
receive it? Here