“I wish, Me’m, I had never seen Mr. H. For nobody will look upon me, if I lose your favour!”

“It will still, Polly” (and I took her hand, with a kind look), “be in your power to keep it:  I will not mention this matter, if you make me your friend, and tell me all that has passed.”—­Again she wept, and was silent.—­This made me more uneasy.—­“Don’t think, Polly,” said I, “that I would envy any other person’s preferment, when I have been so much exalted myself.  If Mr. H. has talked to you of marriage, tell me.”—­“No, Me’m, I can’t say he has yet.”—­“Yet, Polly!  Then he never. will.  For when men do talk of it, they don’t always mean it:  but whenever they mean it, how can they confirm a doubting maiden, without mentioning it:  but alas for you, poor Polly!—­The freedoms you have permitted, no doubt, previous to those I heard, and which might have been greater, had I not surprised you with my cough, shew too well, that he need not make any promises to you.”—­“Indeed, Me’m,” said she, sobbing, “I might be too little upon my guard; but I would not have done any ill for the world.”

“I hope you would not, Polly; but if you suffer these freedoms, you can’t tell what you’d have permitted—­Tell me, do you love Mr. H.?”

“He is very good-humoured, Madam, and is not proud.”—­“No, ’tis not his business to be proud, when he hopes to humble you—­humble you, indeed!—­beneath the lowest person of the sex, that is honest.”—­“I hope——­“—­“You hope!” interrupted I.  “You hope too much; and I fear a great deal for you, because you fear so little for yourself.—­But say, how often have you been in private together?”

“In private, Me’m!  I don’t know what your ladyship calls private!”—­“Why that is private, Polly, when, as just now, you neither imagined nor intended any body should see you.”

She was silent; and I saw by this, poor girl, how true lovers are to their secret, though, perhaps, their ruin depends upon keeping it.  But it behoved me, on many accounts, to examine this matter narrowly; because if Mr. H. should marry her, it would have been laid upon Mr. B.’s example.—­And if Polly were ruined, it would be a sad thing, and people would have said, “Aye, she could take care enough of herself, but none at all of her servant:  her waiting-maid had a much more remiss mistress than Pamela found, or the matter would not have been thus.”

“Well, Polly, I see,” continued I, “that you will not speak out to me.  You may have several reasons for it, possibly, though not one good one.  But as soon as Lady Davers comes in, who has a great concern in this matter, as well as Lord Davers, and are answerable to Lord H. in a matter of so much importance as this, I will leave it to her ladyship’s consideration, and shall no more concern myself to ask you questions about it—­For then I must take her ladyship’s directions, and part with you, to be sure.”