This way of talking pleased them both very much; and they made me many
compliments upon it, and wished me always to be happy, as, they said, I
so well deserved. We were thus engaged, when my master, and his sister and her nephew,
came in: and they made me quite alive, in the happy humour in which they
all returned. The two women would have withdrawn: but my master said,
Don't go, Mrs. Worden: Mrs. Jewkes, pray stay; I shall speak to you
presently. So he came to me, and, saluting me, said, Well, my dear love,
I hope I have not trespassed upon your patience, by an absence longer
than we designed. But it has not been to your disadvantage; for though
we had not your company, we have talked of nobody else but you.
My lady came up to me, and said, Ay, child, you have been all our
subject. I don't know how it is: but you have made two or three good
families, in this neighbourhood, as much your admirers, as your friend
here. My sister, said he, has been hearing your praises, Pamela, from half
a score mouths, with more pleasure than her heart will easily let her
express. My good Lady Davers's favour, said I, and the continuance of yours,
sir, would give me more pride than that of all the rest of the world put
together. Well, child, said she, proud hearts don't come down all at once; though
my brother, here, has this day set mine a good many pegs lower than I
ever knew it: But I will say, I wish you joy with my brother; and so
kissed me. My dear lady, said I, you for ever oblige me!--I shall now believe
myself quite happy. This was all I wanted to make me so!--And I hope I
shall always, through my life, shew your ladyship, that I have the most
grateful and respectful sense of your goodness.
But, child, said she, I shall not give you my company when you make your
appearance. Let your own merit make all your Bedfordshire neighbours
your friends, as it has done here, by your Lincolnshire ones; and you'll
have no need of my countenance, nor any body's else.
Now, said her nephew, 'tis my turn: I wish you joy with all my soul,
madam; and, by what I have seen, and by what I have heard, 'fore Gad, I
think you have met with no more than you deserve; and so all the company
says, where we have been: And pray forgive all my nonsense to you.
Sir, said I, I shall always, I hope, respect as I ought, so near a
relation of my good Lord and Lady Davers; and I thank you for your kind
compliment. Gad, Beck, said he, I believe you've some forgiveness too to ask; for we
were all to blame, to make madam, here, fly the pit, as she did. Little
did we think we made her quit her own house. Thou always, said my lady, sayest too much, or too little. Mrs. Worden said, I have been treated with so much goodness and
condescension since you went, that I have been beforehand, sir, in
asking pardon myself.