Pamela, Volume II by Samuel Richardson
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page 64 of 732 (08%)
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both in generous hands: and, indeed, if Pamela did not pardon _you_,
I should think she but half forgave _me_, because you acted by my instructions:" another time to the same, "We have been both sinners, and must be both included in one act of grace:"--when I was thus lifted up to the state of a sovereign forgiver, and my lordly master became a petitioner for himself, and the guilty creature, whom he put under my feet; what a triumph was here for the poor Pamela? and could I have been guilty of so mean a pride, as to trample upon the poor abject creature, when I found her thus lowly, thus mortified, and wholly in my power? Then, my dear ladies, while I was enjoying the soul-charming fruits of that innocence which the Divine Grace had enabled me to preserve, in spite of so many plots and contrivances on my master's side, and such wicked instigations and assistances on hers, and all my prospects were improving upon me beyond my wishes; when all was unclouded sunshine, and I possessed my mind in peace, and had only to be thankful to Providence, which had been so gracious to my unworthiness; when I saw my persecutor become my protector, my active enemy no longer my enemy, but creeping with slow, doubtful feet, and speaking to me with awful hesitating doubt of my acceptance; a stamp of an insolent foot now turned into curtseying half-bent knees; threatening hands into supplicating folds; and the eye unpitying to innocence, running over with the sense of her own guilt; a faltering accent on her late menacing tongue, and uplifted handkerchief, "I see she will be my lady: and then I know how it will go with me!"--Was not this, my ladies, a triumph of triumphs to the late miserable, now exalted, Pamela!--could I do less than pardon her? And having declared that I did so, was I not to shew the sincerity of my declaration? |
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