“Ask your uncle, my dear,” said I; “I should like your pretty company of all things.”

She went to Mr. B. and said, “Shall I, Sir, go and live with my aunt?—­Pray let me, when you come from London again.”

“You have a very good governess, child,” said he; “and she can’t part with you.”

“Yes, but she can.  Sir; she has a great many Misses, and can spare me well enough; and if you please to let me ride in your coach sometimes, I can go and visit my governess, and beg a holiday for the Misses, now-and-then, when I am almost a woman, and then all the Misses will love me.”

“Don’t the Misses love you now, Miss Goodwin?” said he.

“Yes, they love me well enough, for matter of that; but they’ll love me better, when I can beg them a holiday.  Do, dear Sir, let me go home to my new aunt, next time you come into the country.”

I was much pleased with the dear child’s earnestness; and permitted her to have her full argument with her beloved uncle; but was much moved, and he himself was under some concern, when she said, “But you should, in pity, let me live with you, Sir, for I have no papa, nor mamma neither:  they are so far off!—­But I will love you both as if you were my own papa and mamma; so, dear now, my good uncle, promise the poor girl that has never a papa nor mamma!”

I withdrew to the door:  “It will rain, I believe,” said I, and looked up.  And, indeed, I had almost a shower in my eye:  and had I kept my place, could not have refrained shewing how much I was affected.

Mr. B., as I said, was a little moved; but for fear the young gentlewoman should take notice of it—­“How! my dear,” said he, “no papa and mamma!—­Did they not send you a pretty black boy to wait upon you, a while ago?  Have you forgot that?”—­“That’s true,” replied she:  “but what’s a black boy to living with my new aunt?—­That’s better a great deal than a black boy!”

“Well, your aunt and I will consider of it, when we come from London.  Be a good girl, meantime, and do as your governess would have you, and then you don’t know what we may do for you.”

“Well then, Miss,” said she to her young governess, “let me be set two tasks instead of one, and I will learn all I can to deserve to go to my aunt.”

In this manner the little prattler diverted herself.  And as we returned from them, the scene I hinted at, opened as follows: 

Mr. B. was pleased to say, “What a poor figure does the proudest man make, my dear Pamela, under the sense of a concealed guilt, in company of the innocent who know it, and even of those who do not!—­Since the casual expression of a baby shall overwhelm him with shame, and make him unable to look up without confusion.  I blushed for myself,” continued he, “to see how you were affected for me, and yet withdrew, to avoid reproaching me so much as with a look.  Surely, Pamela, I must then make a most contemptible appearance in your eye!  Did you not disdain me at that moment?”