Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Сэмюэл Ричардсон

and the most eminent mythologists.]

      ‘As the ants were airing their provisions one winter, a hungry grasshopper (as suppose it was poor I) begged a charity of them. They told him, That he should have wrought in summer, if he would not have wanted in winter. Well, says the grasshopper, but I was not idle neither; for I sung out the whole season. Nay, then, said they, you’ll e’en do well to make a merry year of it, and dance in winter to the time you sung in summer.’

      So I shall make a fine figure with my singing and my dancing, when I come home to you! Nay, I shall be unfit even for a May-day holiday-time; for these minuets, rigadoons, and French dances, that I have been practising, will make me but ill company for my milk-maid companions that are to be. To be sure I had better, as things stand, have learned to wash and scour, and brew and bake, and such like. Put I hope, if I can’t get work, and can meet with a place, to learn these soon, if any body will have the goodness to bear with me till I am able: For, notwithstanding what my master says, I hope I have an humble and teachable mind; and, next to God’s grace, that’s all my comfort: for I shall think nothing too mean that is honest. It may be a little hard at first; but woe to my proud heart, if I find it so on trial; for I will make it bend to its condition, or break it.

      I have read of a good bishop that was to be burnt for his religion; and he tried how he could bear it, by putting his fingers into the lighted candle: So I, t’other day, tried, when Rachel’s back was turned, if I could not scour a pewter plate she had begun. I see I could do’t by degrees: It only blistered my hand in two places.

      All the matter is, if I could get plain-work enough, I need not spoil my fingers. But if I can’t, I hope to make my hands as red as a blood-pudding, and as hard as a beechen trencher, to accommodate them to my condition.—But I must break off; here’s somebody coming.

      ‘Tis only our Hannah with a message from Mrs. Jervis.—But, hold, here’s somebody else. Well, it is only Rachel.

      I am as much frighted, as were the city mouse and the country mouse, in the same book of fables, at every thing that stirs. O! I have a power of these things to entertain you with in winter evenings, when I come home. If I can but get work, with a little time for reading, I hope we shall be very happy over our peat fires.

      What made me hint to you, that I should bring but little with me, is this:

      You must know, I did intend to do, as I have this afternoon: and that is, I took all my clothes, and all my linen, and I divided them into three parcels, as I had before told Mrs. Jervis I intended to do; and I said, It is now Monday, Mrs. Jervis, and I am to go away on Thursday morning betimes; so, though I know you don’t doubt my honesty, I beg you will look over my poor matters, and let every one have what belongs to them; for, said I, you know I am resolved to take with me only what I can properly call my own.

      Said she, (I did not know her drift then; to be sure she meant well; but I did not thank her for it, when I did know it,) Let your things be brought down in the green-room, and I will do any thing you will have me do.

      With all my heart, said I, green-room or any where; but I think you might step up, and see ‘em as they lie.

      However, I fetched ‘em down, and laid them in three parcels, as before; and, when I had done, I went down to call her up to look at them.

      Now, it seems, she had prepared my master for this scene, unknown to me; and in this green-room was a closet, with a sash-door, and a curtain before it; for there she puts her sweet-meats and such things; and she did it, it seems, to turn his heart, as knowing what I intended, I suppose that he should make me take the things; for, if he had, I should have made money of them, to help us when we got together; for, to be sure, I could never have appeared in them.

      Well, as I was saying, he had got, unknown to me, into this closet; I suppose while I went to call Mrs. Jervis: and she since owned to me, it was at his desire, when she told him something of what I intended, or else she would not have done it: though I have reason, I am sure, to remember the last closet-work.

      So I said, when she came up, Here, Mrs. Jervis, is the first parcel; I will spread it all abroad. These are the things my good lady gave me.—In the first place, said I—and so I went on describing the clothes and linen my lady had given me, mingling blessings, as I proceeded, for her goodness to me; and when I had turned over that parcel, I said, Well, so much for the first parcel, Mrs. Jervis; that was my lady’s gifts.

      Now I come to the presents of my dear virtuous master: Hey, you know closet for that! Mrs. Jervis. She laughed, and said, I never saw such a comical girl in my life! But go on. I will, Mrs. Jervis, said I, as soon as I have opened the bundle; for I was as brisk and as pert as could be, little thinking who heard me.

      Now here, Mrs. Jervis, said I, are my ever worthy master’s presents; and then I particularised all those in the second bundle.

      After which, I turned to my own, and said,

      Now, Mrs. Jervis, comes poor Pamela’s bundle; and a little one it is to the others. First, here is a calico nightgown, that I used to wear o’ mornings. ‘Twill be rather too good for me when I get home; but I must have something. Then there is a quilted calamanco coat, and a pair of stockings I bought of the pedlar, and my straw-hat with blue strings; and a remnant of Scots cloth, which will make two shirts and two shifts, the same I have on, for my poor father and mother. And here are four other shifts, one the fellow to that I have on; another pretty good one, and the other two old fine ones, that will serve me to turn and wind with at home, for they are not worth leaving behind me; and here are two pair of shoes, I have taken the lace off, which I will burn, and may be will fetch me some little matter at a pinch, with an old silver buckle or two.

      What do you laugh for, Mrs. Jervis? said I.—Why you are like an April day; you cry and laugh in a breath.

      Well, let me see; ay, here is a cotton handkerchief I bought of the pedlar—there should be another somewhere. O, here it is! and here too are my new-bought knit mittens; and this is my new flannel coat, the fellow to that I have on and in this parcel, pinned together, are several pieces of printed calico, remnants of silks, and such like, that, if good luck should happen, and I should get work, would serve for robins and facings, and such like uses. And here too are a pair of pockets: they are too fine for me; but I have no worse. Bless me, said I, I did not think I had so many good things!

      Well, Mrs. Jervis, said I, you have seen all my store, and I will now sit down, and tell you a piece of my mind.

      Be brief then, said she, my good girl: for she was afraid, she said afterwards, that I should say too much.

      Why then the case is this: I am to enter upon a point of equity and conscience, Mrs. Jervis; and I must beg, if you love me, you’d let me have my own way. Those things there of my lady’s, I can have no claim to, so as to take them away; for she gave them me, supposing I was to wear them in her service, and to do credit to her bountiful heart. But, since I am to be turned away, you know, I cannot wear them at my poor father’s; for I should bring all the little village upon my back; and so I resolve not to have them.

      Then, Mrs. Jervis, said I, I have far less right to these of my worthy master’s; for you see what was his intention in giving them to me. So they were to be the price of my shame, and if I could make use of them, I should think I should never prosper with them; and, besides, you know, Mrs. Jervis, if I would not do the good gentleman’s work, why should I take his wages? So, in conscience, in honour, in every thing, I have nothing to say to thee, thou second wicked bundle!

      But, said I, cone to my arms, my dear third parcel, the companion of my poverty, and the witness of my honesty; and may I never deserve the least rag that is contained in thee, when I forfeit a title to that innocence, that I hope will ever be the pride of my life! and then I am sure it will be my highest comfort at my death, when all the riches and pomps of the world will be worse than the vilest rags that can be worn by beggars! And so I hugged my third bundle.

      But, said I, Mrs. Jervis, (and she wept to hear me,) one thing more I have to trouble you with, and that’s all.

      There are four guineas, you know, that came out of my good lady’s pocket, when she died; that, with some silver, my master gave me: Now these same four guineas I sent to my poor father and mother, and they