so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some
neighbouring gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very
soon, and the moment I am I shall return to my old master's
country seat, if it be only to see Parson Adams, who is the
best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there is so
little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't
know one another. Your loving brother,
JOSEPH ANDREWS.

The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.

"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach
against it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the
confidence to talk of his virtue?"

"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her,
should be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship
mentions, I am sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of
reading my sister Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example
would amend them."

"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
and leave the house this night!"

Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out
at seven in the evening.

_II.--Adventures on the Road_

It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his
father and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to
set out full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on
his journey to town.

Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.

Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
and persuaded the