s of your own pleasures, and your own time, so sweetly
do you choose to employ it: and thus shall I find some of my own bad
actions atoned for by your exemplary goodness, and God will bless me for
your sake.

O, said he, what pleasure you give me in this sweet foretaste of my
happiness! I will now defy the saucy, busy censurers of the world;
and bid them know your excellence, and my happiness, before they, with
unhallowed lips, presume to judge of my actions, and your merit!--And
let me tell you, my Pamela, that I can add my hopes of a still more
pleasing amusement, and what your bashful modesty would not permit you
to hint; and which I will no otherwise touch upon, lest it should
seem, to your nicety, to detract from the present purity of my good
intentions, than to say, I hope to have superadded to all these, such an
employment, as will give me a view of perpetuating my happy prospects,
and my family at the same time; of which I am almost the only male.

I blushed, I believe; yet could not be displeased at the decent and
charming manner with which he insinuated this distant hope: And oh!
judge for me, how my heart was affected with all these things!

He was pleased to add another charming reflection, which shewed me the
noble sincerity of his kind professions. I do own to you, my Pamela,
said he, that I love you with a purer flame than ever I knew in my whole
life; a flame to which I was a stranger; and which commenced for you in
the garden; though you, unkindly, by your unseasonable doubts, nipped
the opening bud, while it was too tender to bear the cold blasts of
slight or negligence. And I know more sincere joy and satisfaction in
this sweet hour's conversation with you, than all the guilty tumults
of my former passion ever did, or (had even my attempts succeeded) ever
could have afforded me.

O, sir, said I, expect not words from your poor servant, equal to these
most generous professions. Both the means, and the will, I now see, are
given to you, to lay me under an everlasting obligation. How happy
shall I be, if, though I cannot be worthy of all this goodness and
condescension, I can prove myself not entirely unworthy of it! But I
can only answer for a grateful heart; and if ever I give you cause,
wilfully, (and you will generously allow for involuntary imperfections,)
to be disgusted with me, may I be an outcast from your house and favour,
and as much repudiated, as if the law had divorced me from you!

Bu