(for I
had absolutely resolved never to wound again even your ears with any
proposals of a contrary nature;) that was the reason I desired you to
permit Mrs. Jewkes to be so much on her guard till I came back, when I
thought I should have decided this disputed point within myself, between
my pride and my inclinations.

This, good sir, said I, accounts well to me for your conduct in that
case, and for what you said to me and Mrs. Jewkes on that occasion: And
I see more and more how much I may depend upon your honour and goodness
to me.--But I will tell you all the truth. And then I recounted to him
the whole affair of the gipsy, and how the letter was put among the
loose grass, etc. And he said, The man who thinks a thousand dragons
sufficient to watch a woman, when her inclination takes a contrary bent,
will find all too little; and she will engage the stones in the
street, or the grass in the field, to act for her, and help on her
correspondence. If the mind, said he, be not engaged, I see there is
hardly any confinement sufficient for the body; and you have told me a
very pretty story; and, as you never gave me any reason to question your
veracity, even in your severest trials, I make no doubt of the truth
of what you have now mentioned: and I will, in my turn, give you such a
proof of mine, that you shall find it carry a conviction with it.

You must know, then, my Pamela, that I had actually formed such a
project, so well informed was this old rascally Somebody! and the time
was fixed for the very person described in this letter to be here; and I
had thought he should have read some part of the ceremony (as little as
was possible, to deceive you) in my chamber; and so I hoped to have you
mine upon terms that then would have been much more agreeable to me than
real matrimony. And I did not in haste intend you the mortification of
being undeceived; so that we might have lived for years, perhaps, very
lovingly together; and I had, at the same time, been at liberty to
confirm or abrogate it as I pleased.

O sir, said I, I am out of breath with the thoughts of my danger! But
what good angel prevented the execution of this deep-laid design?

Why, your good angel, Pamela, said he; for when I began to consider,
that it would have made you miserable, and me not happy; that if you
should have a dear little one, it would be out of my own power to
legitimate it, if I should wish it to inherit my estate; and that, as I
am al