"
There's for you, dear Sir!--See what a mother can do if she pleases!
I remember, Sir, formerly, in that sweet chariot conference, at
the dawning of my hopes, when all my dangers were happily over (a
conference I shall always think of with pleasure), that you asked me,
how I would bestow my time, supposing the neighbouring ladies would
be above being seen in my company; when I should have no visits to
receive or return; no parties of pleasure to join in; no card-tables
to employ my winter evenings?
I then, Sir, transported with my opening prospects, prattled to you,
how well I would try to pass my time, in the family management and
accounts, in visits now and then to the indigent and worthy poor; in
music sometimes; in reading, in writing, in my superior duties--And I
hope I have not behaved quite unworthily of my promise.
But I also remember, what once you said on a certain occasion, which
_now_, since the fair prospect is no longer distant, and that I have
been so long your happy wife, I may repeat without those blushes which
then covered my face; thus then, with a _modest_ grace, and with that
_virtuous_ endearment that is so _beautiful_ in _your_ sex, as well
as in _ours_, whether in the character of lover or husband, maiden
or wife, you were pleased to say--"And I hope, my Pamela, to have
superadded to all these, such an employment as--" in short, Sir, I am
now blessed with, and writing of; no less than the useful part I may
be able to take in the first education of your beloved babies!
And now I must add, that this pleasing hope sets me above all other
diversions: I wish for no parties of pleasure but with you, my dearest
Mr.
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