'
"'Ah, son!' said she, 'I fear, by your description, you have minded
her too much in one sense, though not enough in another. 'Tis not my
intention to recommend her to your notice, of all men; and I doubt
not, if it please God I live, and she continues a good girl, but she
will make a man of some middling, genteel business, very happy.'
"Pamela came in just then, with an air so natural, so humble, and yet
so much above herself, that I was forced to turn my head from her,
lest my mother should watch my eye again, and I be inclined to do her
that justice, which my heart assented to, but which my lips had just
before denied her.
"All my difficulty, in apprehension, was my good mother; the effect
of whose lessons to her girl, I was not so much afraid of as her
vigilance. 'For,' thought I, 'I see by the delicacy of her person, the
brilliancy of her eye, and the sweet apprehensiveness that plays
about every feature of her face, she must have tinder enough in her
constitution, to catch a well-struck spark; and I'll warrant I shall
know how to set her in a blaze, in a few months more.'
"Yet I wanted, as I passed, to catch her attention too: I expected her
to turn after me, and look so as to shew a liking towards me; for I
had a great opinion of my person and air, which had been fortunately
distinguished by the ladies, whom, of course, my vanity made me allow
to be very good judges of these outward advantages.
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