must then make a most contemptible appearance in your eye! Did you not
disdain me at that moment?"

"Dearest Sir! how can you speak such a word? A word I cannot
repeat after you! For at that very time, I beheld you with the more
reverence, for seeing your noble heart touched with a sense of your
error; and it was such an earnest to me of the happiest change I could
ever wish for, and in so young a gentleman, that it was one half
joy for that, and the other half concern at the little charmer's
accidental plea, to her best and nearest friend, for coming home to
her new aunt, that affected me so sensibly as you saw."

"You must not talk to me of the child's coming home, after this visit,
Pamela; for how, at this rate, shall I stand the reproaches of my own
mind, when I see the little prater every day before me, and think of
what her poor mamma has suffered on my account! 'Tis enough, that in
_you_, my dear, I have an hourly reproach before me, for my attempts
on your virtue; and I have nothing to boast of, but that I gave way to
the triumphs of your innocence: and what then is my boast?"

"What is your boast, dearest Sir? You have everything to boast, that
is worthy of being boasted of.

"You are the best of husbands, the best of landlords, the best of
masters, the best of friends; and, with all these excellencies, and
a mind, as I hope, continually improving, and more and more affected
with the sense of its past mistakes, will you ask, dear Sir, what is
your boast?

"O my dearest, dear Mr. B.," and then I pressed his hands with my