Pamela | Page 3

happiness I could not so early have hoped for, that I can say so without reserve; since the dear object of it requires nothing of me but what is consistent with my duty to the Supreme Benefactor, the first mover and cause of all his own happiness, of my happiness, and that of my dear, my ever dear parents.
_Your dutiful and happy daughter._

LETTER II
MY DEAREST DAUGHTER,
I need not repeat to you the sense your good mother and I have of our happiness, and of our obligations to your honoured spouse; you both were pleased witnesses of it every hour of the happy fortnight you passed with us. Yet, my dear, we hardly know how to address ourselves even to _you_, much less to the _'squire_, with the freedom he so often invited us to take: for I don't know how it is, but though you are our daughter, and so far from being lifted up by your high condition, that we see no difference in your behaviour to us, your poor parents, yet, viewing you as the lady of so fine a gentleman, we cannot forbear having a kind of respect, and--I don't know what to call it--that lays a little restraint upon us. And yet, we should not, methinks, let our minds be run away with the admiration of worldly grandeur, so as to set too much by it. But your merit and prudence are so much above all we could ever have any notion of: and to have gentry come only to behold and admire you, not so much for your gentleness, and amiableness, or for your behaviour, and affability to poor as well as rich, and to hear every one calling you an angel, and saying, you deserve to be what you are, make us hardly know how to look upon you, but as an angel indeed! I am sure you have been a good angel to us; since, for your sake, God Almighty has put it into your honoured husband's heart to make us the happiest couple in the world. But little less we should have been, had we only in some far distant land heard of our dear child's happiness and never partaken of the benefits of it ourselves. But thus to be provided for! thus kindly to be owned, and called Father and Mother by such a brave gentleman! and so placed as to have nothing to do but to bless God, him, and you, and hourly pray for you _both_, is a providence too mighty to be borne by us, with equalness of temper: we kneel together every morning, noon, and night, and weep and rejoice, and rejoice and weep, to think how our unworthiness is distinguished, and how God has provided for us in our latter days; when all our fear was, that, as we grew older and more infirm, and worn out by hard labour, we should be troublesome where, not our pride, but our industrious wills, would have made us wish not to be so;--but to be entitled to a happier lot: for this would have grieved us the more, for the sake of you, my dear child, and your unhappy brother's children: for it is well known, that, though we pretend not to boast of our family, and indeed have no reason, yet none of us were ever sunk so low as I was: to be sure, partly by my own fault; for, had it been for your poor aged mother's sake only, I ought not to have done what I did for John and William; for so unhappy were they, poor lads! that what I could do, was but as a drop of water to a bucket.
You command me--Let me, as writing to Mr. B.'s lady, say _command_, though, as to my dear _daughter_, I will only say _desire_: and, indeed, I will not, as you wish me not to do, let the one condition, which was accidental, put the other, which was natural, out of my thought: you spoke it in better words, but this was the sense. But you have the gift of utterance; and education is a fine thing, where it meets with such talents to improve upon, as God has given you. Yet let me not forget what I was going to say--You _command_--or, if you please--you desire me to write long letters, and often--And how can I help it, if I would? For when here, in this happy dwelling, and this well-stocked farm, in these rich meadows, and well-cropt acres, we look around us, and which way soever we turn our head, see blessings upon blessings, and plenty upon plenty, see barns well stored, poultry increasing, the kine lowing and crowding about us: and are bid to call them our own. Then think,