his resentment, than to his wife's intimacies.

"But to wave a subject, in which, as I can with pleasure say, neither
of us have much concern, tell me, my dearest, how you were employed
before I came up? Here are pen and ink: here, too, is paper, but it is
as spotless as your mind. To whom were you directing your favours now?
May I not know your subject?"

Mr. H.'s letter was a part of it; and so I had put it by, at his
approach, and not choosing he should see that--"I am writing," replied
I, "to Miss Darnford: but I think you must not ask me to see what I
have written _this_ time. I put it aside that you should not, when
I heard your welcome step. The subject is our parting with our noble
guests; and a little of my apprehensiveness, on an occasion upon which
our sex may write to one another; but, for some of the reasons we have
been mentioning, gentlemen should not desire to see."

"Then I will not, my dearest love." (So here, my dear, is another
instance--I could give you an hundred such--of his receding from his
own will, in complaisance to mine.) "Only," continued he, "let me warn
you against too much apprehensiveness, for your own sake, as well as
mine; for such a mind as my Pamela's I cannot permit to be
habitually over-clouded. And yet there now hangs upon your brow an
over-thoughtfulness, which you must not indulge."

"Indeed, Sir, I was a little too thoughtful, from my subject, before
you came; but your presence, like the sun, has dissipated the mists
that hung upon my mind. See you not," and I pressed his hand with my
lips, "they are all gone already?" smiling upon him with a delight
unfeigned.