“Proceed, my dear girl,” said he.  “I love to hear you talk !”

“Music, which my good lady also had me instructed in, will also fill up some intervals if I should have any.  Then, sir, you know, I love reading and scribbling, and tho’ most of the latter will be employed in the family accounts, yet reading, in proper books, will be a pleasure to me, which I shall be unwilling to give up for the best company in the world when I cannot have yours.”

“What delight do you give me, my beloved Pamela, in this sweet foretaste of my happiness!  I will now defy the saucy, busy censures of the world.”

Ten days later.  Your happy, thrice happy Pamela, is at last married, my dearest parents.

This morning we entered the private chapel at this house, and my master took my hand and led me up to the altar.  Mr. Peters, the good rector, gave me away, and the curate read the service.  I trembled so, I could hardly stand.

And thus the dear, once haughty, assailer of Pamela’s innocence, by a blessed turn of Providence, is become the kind, the generous protector and rewarder of it.

* * * * *

Clarissa Harlowe

“Clarissa Harlowe,” written after “Pamela,” brought Richardson a European reputation.  The first four volumes of the novel appeared in 1747, the last four in 1748, and during the next few years translations were being executed in French and German.  Like “Pamela,” the story itself is thin and simple, but the characters are drawn with a bolder and surer touch.  “No work had appeared before,” says Scott, “perhaps none has appeared since, containing so many direct appeals to the passions.”  Yet opinions were singularly divided as to its merits.  Dr. Johnson said that the novel “enlarged the knowledge of human nature.”

I.—­At Harlowe Place

CLARISSA is persecuted by her family to marry Mr. Roger Solmes, but favours Richard Lovelace, who is in love with her.  That her grandfather had left Clarissa a considerable estate accounts mainly for the hostility of the family to Clarissa’s desire for independence.

Clarissa writes to her friend, Miss Howe: 

“January 15.  The moment, my dear, that Mr. Lovelace’s visits were mentioned to my brother on his arrival from Scotland he expressed his disapprobation, declaring he had ever hated him since he had known him at college, and would never own me for a sister if I married him.

“This antipathy I have heard accounted for in this manner: