She used in vain
therefore to plead family reasons to me:--like most young fellows, I
was too much a self-lover, to pay so great a regard to posterity; and,
to say truth, had little solicitude at that time, whether my name were
continued or not, in my own descendants. However, I looked upon
my mother's Pamela with no small pleasure, and I found her so
much improved, as well in person as behaviour, that I had the less
inducement either to renew my intriguing life, or to think of a
married state.
"Yet, as my mother had all her eyes about her, as the phrase is,
I affected great shyness, both before her, and to the girl; for I
doubted not, my very looks would be watched by them both; and what the
one discovered would not be a secret to the other; and laying myself
open too early to a suspicion, I thought, would but ice the girl over,
and make her lady more watchful.
"So I used to go into my mother's apartment, and come out of it,
without taking the least notice of her, but put on stiff airs; and as
she always withdrew when I came in, I never made any pretence to keep
her there.
"Once, indeed, my mother, on my looking after her, when her back was
turned, said, 'My dear son, I don't like your eye following my girl
so intently.
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