JOHN and ELIZ.  ANDREWS.

May we hope to be favoured now and then with a letter from you, my dear child, like some of your former, to let us know how you go on?  It would be a great joy to us; indeed it would.  But we know you’ll have enough to do without obliging us in this way.  So must acquiesce.

LETTER III

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,

I have shewed your letter to my beloved.  Don’t be uneasy that I have; for you need not be ashamed of it, since it is my pride to have such honest and grateful parents:  and I’ll tell you what he said to it, as the best argument I can use, why you should not be uneasy, but enjoy without pain or anxiety all the benefits of your happy lot.

“Dear good souls!” said he, “now every thing they say and write manifests the worthiness of their hearts!  No wonder, Pamela, you love and revere such honest minds; for that you would do, were they not your parents:  and tell them, that I am so far from having them believe what I have done for them were only from my affection for their daughter, that let ’em find out another couple as worthy as they are, and I will do as much for them.  I would not place them,” he continued, “in the same county, because I would wish two counties to be blessed for their sakes.  Tell them, my dear, that they have a right to what they enjoy on the foot of their own proper merit; and bid them enjoy it as their patrimony; and if any thing arise that is more than they themselves can wish for, in their way of life, let them look among their own relations, where it may be acceptable, and communicate to them the like solid reasons for rejoicing in the situation they are pleased with:  and do you, my dear, still farther enable them, as you shall judge proper, to gratify their enlarged hearts, for fear they should deny any comfort to themselves, in order to do good to others.”

I could only fly to his generous bosom (for this is a subject which most affects me), and, with my eyes swimming in tears of grateful joy, and which overflowed as soon as my bold lips touched his dear face, bless God, and bless him, with my whole heart; for speak I could not!  But, almost chok’d with my joy, sobb’d to him my grateful acknowledgments.  He clasped me in his arms, and said, “How, my dearest, do you overpay me for the little I have done for your parents!  If it be thus to be bless’d for conferring benefits so insignificant to a man of my fortune, what joys is it not in the power of rich men to give themselves, whenever they please!—­Foretastes, indeed, of those we are bid to hope for:  which can surely only exceed these, as then we shall be all intellect, and better fitted to receive them.”—­“’Tis too much!—­too much,” said I, in broken accents:  “how am I oppressed with the pleasure you give me!—­O, Sir, bless me more gradually, and more cautiously—­for I cannot bear it!” And, indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison, to mingle still more intimately with his own.