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　　LETTER LXXI

　　MY DEAREST LADY,

　　A thousand thanks for your kind, your truly sisterly letter and advice. Mr. B. is just returned from a tour to Portsmouth, with the Countess, I believe, but am not sure.

　　Here I am forced to leave off.

　　Let me scratch through this last surmise. It seems she was not with him. This is some comfort.

　　He is very kind: and Billy not being well when he came in, my grief passed off without blame. He had said many tender things to me; but added, that if I gave myself so much uneasiness every time the child ailed any thing, he would hire the nurse to overlay him. Bless me. Madam! what hard-hearted shocking things are these men capable of saying!—The farthest from their hearts, indeed; so they had need—For he was as glad of the child's being better as I could be.

　　In the morning he went out in the chariot for about an hour, and returned in a good humour, saying twenty agreeable things to me, which makes me so proud, and so pleased!

　　He is gone out again.

　　Could I but find this matter happily conquered, for his own soul's sake!—But he seems, by what your ladyship mentions, to have carried this polygamy point with the lady.

　　Can I live with him. Madam—ought I—if this be the case? I have it under his hand, that the laws of his country were sufficient to deter him from that practice. But alas! he knew not this countess then!

　　But here I must break off.

　　He is returned, and coming up. "Go into my bosom for the present, O letter dedicated to dear Lady Davers—Come to my hand the play employment, so unsuited to my present afflicted mind!"—Here he comes!

　　O, Madam! my heart is almost broken!—Just now Mr. B. tells me, that the Countess Dowager and the Viscountess, her sister, are to be here to see my Billy, and to drink tea with me, this very afternoon!

　　I was all confusion when he told me this. I looked around and around, and upon every thing but him.

　　"Will not my friends be welcome, Pamela?" said he sternly.

　　"O yes, very welcome! But I have these wretched vapours so, that I wish I might be excused—I wish I might be allowed to take an airing in the chariot for two or three hours; for I shall not be fit to be seen by such—ladies," said I, half out of breath.

　　"You'll be fit to be seen by nobody, my dear, if you go on thus. But, do as you please."

　　He was going, and I took his hand: "Stay, dear Sir, let me know what you would have me do. If you would have me stay, I will."

　　"To be sure I would."

　　"Well, Sir, then I will. For it is hard," thought I, "if an innocent person cannot look up in her own house too, as it now is, as I may say, to a guilty one! Guilty in her heart, at least!—Though, poor lady, I hope she is not so in fact; and, if God hears my prayers, never will, for all three of our sakes."

　　But, Madam, think of me, what a task I have!—How my heart throbs in my bosom! How I tremble! how I struggle with myself! What rules I form for my behaviour to this naughty lady! How they are dashed in pieces as soon as formed, and new ones taken up! And yet I doubt myself when I come to the test.

　　But one thing will help me. I pity the poor lady; and as she comes with the heart of a robber, to invade me in my lawful right, I pride myself in a superiority over this countess; and will endeavour to shew her the country girl in a light which would better become her to appear in.

　　I must be forced to leave off here; for Mr. B. is just come in to receive his guests; and I am in a sad flutter upon it. All my resolution fails me; what shall I do? O that this countess was come and gone!

　　I have one comfort, however, in the midst of all my griefs; and that is in your ladyship's goodness, which gives me leave to assume the honoured title, that let what may happen, will always give me equal pride and pleasure, in subscribing myself, your ladyship's most obliged sister, and humble servant, P.B. Pamela — Volume 2