“Pamela, take heed that you do not suffer the purity of your own mind, in breach of your charity, to make you too rigorous a censurer of other people’s actions:  don’t be so puffed up with your own perfections, as to imagine, that, because other persons allow themselves liberties you cannot take, therefore they must be wicked.  Sir Simon is a gentleman who indulges himself in a pleasant vein, and, I believe, as well as you, has been a great rake and libertine:”  (You’ll excuse me, Sir Simon, because I am taking your part), “but what then?  You see it is all over with him now.  He says, that he must, and therefore he will be virtuous:  and is a man for ever to hear the faults of his youth, when so willing to forget them?”

“Ah! but, Sir, Sir,” said the bold slut, “can you say he is willing to forget them?—­Does he not repine in this very letter, that he must forsake them; and does he not plainly cherish the inclination, when he owns—­” She hesitated—­“Owns what?”—­“You know what I mean.  Sir, and I need not speak it:  and can there well be a more censurable character?—­Then before his maiden daughters! his virtuous lady! before any body!—­What a sad thing is this, at a time of life, which should afford a better example!

“But, dear Sir,” continued the bold prattler, (taking advantage of a silence more owing to displeasure than approbation) “let me, for I would not be too censorious” (No, not she! in the very act of censoriousness to say this!), “let me offer but one thing:  don’t you think Sir Simon himself would be loth to be thought a reformed gentleman?  Don’t you see his delight, when speaking of his former pranks, as if sorry he could not play them over again?  See but how he simpers, and enjoys, as one may say, the relations of his own rakish actions, when he tells a bad story!”

“But,” said I, “were this the case” (for I profess, Sir Simon, I was at a grievous loss to defend you), “for you to write all these free things against a father to his daughter, is that right, Pamela?”

“O, Sir! the good gentleman himself has taken care, that such a character as I presumed to draw to Miss of her papa, was no strange one to her.  You have seen yourself, Mr. B., whenever his arch leers, and his humourous attitude on those occasions, have taught us to expect some shocking story, how his lady and daughters (used to him as they are), have suffered in their apprehensions of what he would say, before he spoke it:  how, particularly, dear Miss Darnford has looked at me with concern, desirous, as it were, if possible, to save her papa from the censure, which his faulty expressions must naturally bring upon him.  And, dear Sir, is it not a sad thing for a young lady, who loves and honours her papa, to observe, that he is discrediting himself, and wants the example he ought to give? And pardon me, Sir, for smiling on so serious an occasion; but is it not a fine sight to see a gentleman, as we have often seen Sir Simon, when he has thought proper to read a passage in some bad book, pulling off his spectacles, to talk filthily upon it?  Methinks I see him now,” added the bold slut, “splitting his arch face with a broad laugh, shewing a mouth, with hardly a tooth in it, and making obscene remarks upon what he has read.”