Description
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
LETTER I
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I have great trouble, and some comfort, to acquaint you with. The
trouble is, that my good lady died of the illness I mentioned to you,
and left us all much grieved for the loss of her; for she was a dear
good lady, and kind to all us her servants. Much I feared, that as I
was taken by her ladyship to wait upon her person, I should be quite
destitute again, and forced to return to you and my poor mother, who
have enough to do to maintain yourselves; and, as my lady’s goodness
had put me to write and cast accounts, and made me a little expert at my
needle, and otherwise qualified above my degree, it was not every family
that could have found a place that your poor Pamela was fit for: but
God, whose graciousness to us we have so often experienced at a pinch,
put it into my good lady’s heart, on her death-bed, just an hour before
she expired, to recommend to my young master all her servants, one by
one; and when it came to my turn to be recommended, (for I was sobbing
and crying at her pillow) she could only say, My dear son!–and so broke
off a little; and then recovering–Remember my poor Pamela–And these
were some of her last words! O how my eyes run–Don’t wonder to see the
paper so blotted.