Chapter 72

MY DEAREST PAMELA,

You need not be afraid of any body's knowing what passes between us on this cutting subject. Though I hear of it from every mouth, yet I pretend 'tis all falsehood and malice. Yet Lady Betty will have it that there is more in it than I will own; and that I know my brother's wickedness by my pensive looks. She will make a vow, she says, never to marry any man living.

I am greatly moved by your affecting periods. Charming Pamela! what a tempest do you raise in one's mind, when you please, and lay it too, at your own will! Your colourings are strong; but, I hope, your imagination carries you much farther than it is possible he should go.

I am pleased with your prudent reasonings, and your wise resolutions. I see nobody can advise or help you. God only can! And his direction you beg _so_ hourly, that I make no doubt you will have it.

What vexes me is, that when the noble uncle of this vile lady--(why don't you call her so as well as I?)--expostulated with her on the scandals she brought upon her character and family, she pretended to argue (foolish creature!) to polygamy: and said, she had rather be a certain gentleman's second wife, than the first to the greatest man in England.

I leave you to your own workings; but if I find your prudence unrewarded by the wretch, the storm you saw raised at the Hall, shall be nothing to the hurricane I will excite, to tear up by the roots all the happiness the two wretches propose to themselves.

Don't let my intelligence, which is undoubted, grieve you over-much. Try some way to move the wretch. It must be done by touching his generosity: he has that in some perfection. But how in _this_ case to move it, is beyond my power or skill to prescribe. God bless you, my dearest Pamela! You shall be my _only_ sister. And I will never own my brother, if he be so base to your superlative merit. Adieu once more, _from your sister and friend,_ B. DAVERS.