modesty which is the peculiar excellency and distinction of our sex."

"You account very well, my dear, by what you now say for your own
over-nice behaviour, as I have sometimes thought it. But are we not
all apt to argue for a practice we make our own, because we _do_ make
it our own, rather than from the reason of the thing?"

"I hope, Sir, that is not the present case with me; for, permit me to
say, that an over-free or negligent behaviour of a lady in the married
state, must be a mark of disrespect to her consort, and would shew as
if she was very little solicitous about what appearance she made in
his eye. And must not this beget in him a slight opinion of her sex
too, as if, supposing the gentleman had been a free liver, she would
convince him there was no other difference in the sex, but as they
were within or without the pale, licensed by the law, or acting in
defiance of it?"

"I understand the force of your argument, Pamela. But you were going
to say something more."

"Only, Sir, permit me to add, that when, in my particular case, you
enjoin me to appear before you always dressed, even in the early part
of the day, it would be wrong, if I was less regardful of my behaviour
and actions, than of my appearance."

"I believe you are right, my dear, if a precise or unnecessary
scrupulousness be avoided, and where all is unaffected, easy, and
natural, as in my Pamela. For I have seen married ladies, both in
England and France, who have kept a husband at a greater distance than
they have exacted from some of his sex, who have been more entitled to