e when she
thought them at an end, and that she was returning to her father: for
when her master found her virtue was not to be subdued, and he had in
vain tried to conquer his passion for her, being a gentleman of pleasure
and intrigue, he had ordered his Lincolnshire coachman to bring his
travelling chariot from thence, not caring to trust his Bedfordshire
coachman, who, with the rest of the servants, so greatly loved and
honoured the fair damsel; and having given him instructions accordingly,
and prohibited the other servants, on pretence of resenting Pamela's
behaviour, from accompanying her any part of the road, he drove her
five miles on the way to her father's; and then turning off, crossed the
country, and carried her onwards toward his Lincolnshire estate.

It is also to be observed, that the messenger of her letters to her
father, who so often pretended business that way, was an implement in
his master's hands, and employed by him for that purpose; and always
gave her letters first to him, and his master used to open and read
them, and then send them on; by which means, as he hints to her, (as she
observes in her letter XXX) he was no stranger to what she wrote. Thus
every way was the poor virgin beset: And the whole will shew the base
arts of designing men to gain their wicked ends; and how much it behoves
the fair sex to stand upon their guard against artful contrivances,
especially when riches and power conspire against innocence and a low
estate.

A few words more will be necessary to make the sequel better understood.
The intriguing gentleman thought fit, however, to keep back from her
father her three last letters; in which she mentions his concealing
himself to hear her partitioning out her clothes, his last effort to
induce her to stay a fortnight, his pretended proposal of the chaplain,
and her hopes of speedily seeing them, as also her verses; and to send
himself a letter to her father, which is as follows:

'GOODMAN ANDREWS,

'You will wonder to receive a letter from me. But I think I am obliged
to let you know, that I have discovered the strange correspondence
carried on between you and your daughter, so injurious to my honour and
reputation, and which, I think, you should not have encouraged, till you
knew there were sufficient grounds for those aspersions, which she so
plentifully casts upon me. Something possibly there might be in what she
has written from time to time; but, believe me, with