a puffed out another
mouthful of smoke. "Well," he repeated, "who rewards Pamela?"

"Her master, sir."

"What does he do?"

The cook's eyes sank modestly to her lap. The cook's complexion became
brighter than ever.

"Her master marries her, sir."

"Oh?"

That was all he said. He was not astonished, or confused, or
encouraged--he simply intimated that he now knew how Pamela's master had
rewarded Pamela. And, more dispiriting still, he took the opportunity of
knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and filled it, and lit it again.
If the cook had been one of the few miserable wretches who never read
novels, she might have felt her fondly founded hopes already sinking
from under her. As it was, Richardson sustained her faith in herself;
Richardson reminded her that Pamela's master had hesitated, and that
Pamela's Virtue had not earned its reward on easy terms. She stole
another look at the doctor. The eloquence of women's eyes, so widely
and justly celebrated in poetry and prose, now spoke in the cook's
eyes. They said, "Marry me, dear sir, and you shall never have underdone
mutton again." The hearts of other savages have been known to soften
under sufficient influences--why should the scientific savage, under
similar pressure, not melt a little too? The doctor took up the talk
again: he made a kind allusion to the cook's family circumstances.

"When you first came here, I think you told me you had no relations?"

"I am an orphan, sir."

"And you had been some time out of a situation, when I engaged you?"

"Yes, sir; my poor little savings were nearly at an end!" Could he
resist that pathetic picture of the orphan's little savings--framed, as
it were, in a delicately-designed reference to her fellow-servant in the
story? "I was as poor as Pamela," she suggested softly.

"And as virtuous," Benjulia added.

The cook's eloquent eyes said, "Thank you, sir."

He laid down his pipe. That was a good sign, surely? He drew his chair
nearer to her. Better and better! His arm was long enough, in the new
position, to reach her waist. Her waist was ready for him.

"You have nothing in particular to do, this afternoon; and I have
nothing particular to do." He delivered himself of this assertion rather
abruptly. At the same time, it was one of those promising statements
which pave the way for anything. He might say, "Having nothing
particular to do to-day--why shouldn't we make love?" Or he might say,
"Having nothing partic