"Your ladyship assured me, at your departure, on the confession of my
remorse for my misdoings, and my promise of amendment, that you would
take it for proof of my being in earnest, if I would endeavour to keep
up a regularity among the servants here; if I would subdue them with
kindness, as I had owned myself subdued; and if I would endeavour to
make every one think, that the best security they could give of doing
their duty to their master in his _absence_, was by doing it to
God Almighty, from whose all-seeing eye nothing can be hid. This, I
remember, your ladyship told me, was the best test of fidelity and
duty, that any servants could shew; since it was impossible, without
religion, but that worldly convenience, or self-interest, must be the
main tie; and so the worst actions might succeed, if servants thought
they should find their sordid advantage in sacrificing their duty.
"So well am I convinced of this truth, that I hope I have begun the
example to good effect: and as no one in the family was so wicked as
I, it was therefore less difficult to reform them; and you will have
the pleasure to know, that you have now servants here, whom you need
not be ashamed to call yours.
"'Tis true, I found it a little difficult at first to keep them within
sight of their duty, after your ladyship departed: but when they saw I
was in earnest, and used them courteously, as you advised, and as your
usage of me convinced me was the rightest usage; when they were told
I had your commands to acquaint you how they conformed to your
injunctions; the task became easy: and I hope we shall all be still
more and more worthy of the favour of so good a lady and so bountiful
a master.
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