clean. I have always told you the consequence of attending to the
minutiae, where art (or imposture, as the ill-mannered would call it)
is designed—your linen rumpled and soily, when you wait upon her—easy
terms these—just come to town—remember (as formerly) to loll, to throw
out your legs, to stroke and grasp down your ruffles, as if of
significance enough to be careless. What though the presence of a fine
lady would require a different behaviour, are you not of years to
dispense with politeness? You can have no design upon her, you know.
You are a father yourself of daughters as old as she. Evermore is
parade and obsequiousness suspectable: it must show either a foolish
head, or a knavish heart. Assume airs of consequence therefore; and you
will be treated as a man of consequence. I have often more than half
ruined myself by my complaisance; and, being afraid of controul, have
brought controul upon myself.

I think I have no more to say at present. I intend to be at Slough, or
on the way to it, as by mine to the lady. Adieu, honest M’Donald.

R.L.

 LETTER XLV

TO CAPTAIN TOMLINSON [ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING; TO BE SHOWN TO THE
LADY AS IN CONFIDENCE.] M. HALL, TUESDAY MORN., JUNE 27.

DEAR CAPTAIN TOMLINSON,

An unhappy misunderstanding has arisen between the dearest lady in the
world and me (the particulars of which she perhaps may give you, but I
will not, because I might be thought partial to myself;) and she
refusing to answer my most pressing and respectful letters; I am at a
most perplexing uncertainty whether she will meet us or not next
Thursday to solemnize.

My Lord is so extremely ill, that if I thought she would not oblige me,
I would defer going up to town for two or three days. He cares not to
have me out of his sight: yet is impatient to salute my beloved as his
niece before he dies. This I have promised to give him an opportunity
to do: intending, if the dear creature will make me happy, to set out
with her for this place directly from church.

With regret I speak it of the charmer of my soul, that
irreconcilableness is her family-fault—the less excusable indeed for
her, as she herself suffers by it in so high a degree from her own
relations.

Now, Sir, as you intended to be in town some time before Thursday, if
it be not too great an inconvenience to you, I could be glad you would
go up as soon as possible, for my sake: and this I the more boldly
request, as I presume that a man who has so many great affairs of his
own in hand as you have, would be glad to be at a certainty as to the
day.

You, Sir, can so pathetically and justly set before her the unhappy
consequences that will follow if the day be postponed, as well with
regard to her uncle’s disappointment, as to the part you have assured
me her mother is willing to take in the wished-for reconciliation, that
I have great hopes she will suffer herself to be prevailed upon. And a
man and horse shall be in waiting to take your dispatches and bring
them to me.

But if you cannot prevail in my favour, you will be pleased to satisfy
your friend, Mr. John Harlowe, that it is not my fault that he is not
obliged. I am, dear Sir,

Your extremely obliged and faithful servant, R. LOVELACE.

 LETTER XLVI

TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDN. JUNE 28, NEAR TWELVE O’CLOCK.

HONOURED SIR,

I received your’s, as your servant desired me to acquaint you, by ten
this morning. Horse and man were in a foam.

I instantly equipped myself, as if come off from a journey, and posted
away to the lady, intending to plead great affairs that I came not
before, in order to favour your antedate; and likewise to be in a
hurry, to have a pretence to hurry her ladyship, and to take no denial
for her giving a satisfactory return to your messenger. But, upon my
entering Mrs. Sinclair’s house, I found all in the greatest
consternation.

You must not, Sir, be surprised. It is a trouble to me to be the
relater of the bad news; but so it is—The lady is gone off! She was
missed but half an hour before I came.

Her waiting-maid is run away, or hitherto is not to be found: so that
they conclude it was by her connivance.

They had sent, before I came, to my honoured masters Mr. Belton, Mr.
Mowbray, and Mr. Belford. Mr. Tourville is out of town.

High words are passing between Madam Sinclair, and Madam Horton, and
Madam Martin; as also with Dorcas. And your servant William threatens
to hang or drown himself.

They have sent to know if they can hear of Mabell, the waiting-maid, at
her mother’s, who it seems lives in Chick-lane, West-Smithfield; and to
an uncle of her’s also, who keeps an alehouse at Cow-cross, had by, and
with whom she lived last.

Your messenger having just changed his horse, is come back: so I will
not detain him longer than to add, that I am, with great concern for
this misfortune, and thanks for your seasonable favour and kind
intentions towards me—I am sure this was not my fault—

Honoured Sir, Your most obliged, humble servant, PATRICK M’DONALD.

 LETTER XLVII

MR. MOWBRAY, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, TWELVE O’CLOCK.

DEAR LOVELACE,

I have plaguy news to acquaint thee with. Miss Harlowe is gone
off!—Quite gone, by soul!—I have no time for particulars, your servant
being gone off. But if I had, we are not yet come to the bottom of the
matter. The ladies here are all blubbering like devills, accusing one
another most confoundedly: whilst Belton and I damn them all together
in thy name.

If thou shouldst hear that thy fellow Will. is taken dead out of some
horse-pond, and Dorcas cut down from her bed’s teaster, from dangling
in her own garters, be not surprised. Here’s the devil to pay. Nobody
serene but Jack Belford, who is taking minutes of examinations,
accusations, and confessions, with the significant air of a Middlesex
Justice; and intends to write at large all particulars, I suppose.

I heartily condole with thee: so does Belton. But it may turn out for
the best: for she is gone away with thy marks, I understand. A foolish
little devill! Where will she mend herself? for nobody will look upon
her. And they tell me that thou wouldst certainly have married her, had
she staid. But I know thee better.

Dear Bobby, adieu. If Lord M. will die now, to comfort thee for this
loss, what a seasonable exit would he make! Let’s have a letter from
thee. Pr’ythee do. Thou can’st write devill-like to Belford, who shews
us nothing at all. Thine heartily,

RD. MOWBRAY.

 LETTER XLVIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. THURSDAY, JUNE 29.

Thou hast heard from M’Donald and Mowbray the news. Bad or good, I know
not which thou’lt deem it. I only wish I could have given thee joy upon
the same account, before the unhappy lady was seduced from Hampstead;
for then of what an ungrateful villany hadst thou been spared the
perpetration, which now thou hast to answer for!

I came to town purely to serve thee with her, expecting that thy next
would satisfy me that I might endeavour it without dishonour. And at
first when I found her gone, I half pitied thee; for now wilt thou be
inevitably blown up: and in what an execrable light wilt thou appear to
all the world!—Poor Lovelace! caught in thy own snares! thy punishment
is but beginning.

But to my narrative: for I suppose thou expectest all particulars from
me, since Mowbray has informed thee that I have been collecting them.

‘The noble exertion of spirit she has made on Friday night, had, it
seems, greatly disordered her; insomuch that she was not visible till
Saturday evening; when Mabell saw her; and she seemed to be very ill:
but on Sunday morning, having dressed herself, as if designing to go to
church, she ordered Mabell to get her a coach to the door.

‘The wench told her, She was to obey her in every thing but the calling
of a coach or chair, or in relation to letters.

‘She sent for Will. and gave him the same command.

‘He pleaded his master’s orders to the contrary, and desired to be
excused.

‘Upon this, down she went, herself, and would have gone out without
observation; but finding the street-door double-locked, and the key not
in the lock, she stept into the street-parlour, and would have thrown
up the sash to call out to the people passing by, as they doubted not:
but that, since her last attempt of the same nature, had been fastened
down.

‘Hereupon she resolutely stept into Mrs. Sinclair’s parlour in the
back-house; where were the old devil and her two partners; and demanded
the key of the street-door, or to have it opened for her.

‘They were all surprised; but desired to be excused, and pleaded your
orders.

‘She asserted, that you had no authority over her; and never should
have any: that their present refusal was their own act and deed: she
saw the intent of their back house, and the reason of putting her
there: she pleaded her condition and fortune; and said, they had no way
to avoid utter ruin, but by opening their doors to her, or by murdering
her, and burying her in their garden or cellar, too deep for detection:
that already what had been done to her was punishable by death: and bid
them at their peril detain her.’

What a noble, what a right spirit has this charming creature, in cases
that will justify an exertion of spirit!—

‘They answered that Mr. Lovelace could prove his marriage, and would
indemnify them. And they all would have vindicated their behaviour on
Friday night, and the reputation of their house. But refusing to hear
them on that topic, she flung from them threatening.

‘She then went up half a dozen stairs in her way to her own apartment:
but, as if she had bethought herself, down she stept again, and
proceeded towards the street-parlour; saying, as she passed by the
infamous Dorcas, I’ll make myself protectors, though the windows
suffer. But that wench, of her own head, on the lady’s going out of
that parlour to Mrs. Sinclair’s, had locked the door, and taken out the
key: so that finding herself disappointed, she burst into tears, and
went sobbing and menacing up stairs again.

‘She made no other attempt till the effectual one. Your letters and
messages, they suppose, coming so fast upon one another (though she
would not answer one of them) gave her some amusement, and an assurance
to them, that she would at last forgive you; and that then all would
end as you wished.

‘The women, in pursuance of your orders, offered not to obtrude
themselves upon her; and Dorcas also kept out of her sight all the rest
of Sunday; also on Monday and Tuesday. But by the lady’s condescension,
(even to familiarity) to Mabell, they imagined, that she must be
working in her mind all that time to get away. They therefore redoubled
their cautions to the wench; who told them so faithfully all that
passed between her lady and her, that they had no doubt of her fidelity
to her wicked trust.

‘’Tis probable she might have been contriving something all this time;
but saw no room for perfecting any scheme. The contrivance by which she
effected her escape seems to me not to have been fallen upon till the
very day; since it depended partly upon the weather, as it proved. But
it is evident she hoped something from Mabell’s simplicity, or
gratitude, or compassion, by cultivating all the time her civility to
her.

‘Polly waited on her early on Wednesday morning; and met with a better
reception than she had reason to expect. She complained however, with
warmth, of her confinement. Polly said there would be an happy end to
it (if it were a confinement,) next day, she presumed. She absolutely
declared to the contrary, in the way Polly meant it; and said, That Mr.
Lovelace, on his return [which looked as if she intended to wait for
it] should have reason to repent the orders he had given, as they all
should their observance of them: let him send twenty letters, she would
not answer one, be the consequence what it would; nor give him hope of
the least favour, while she was in that house. She had given Mrs.
Sinclair and themselves fair warning, she said: no orders of another
ought to make them detain a free person: but having made an open
attempt to go, and been detained by them, she was the calmer, she told
Polly; let them look to the consequence.

‘But yet she spoke this with temper; and Polly gave it as her opinion,
(with apprehension for their own safety,) that having so good a handle
to punish them all, she would not go away if she might. And what,
inferred Polly, is the indemnity of a man who has committed the vilest
of rapes on a person of condition; and must himself, if prosecuted for
it, either fly, or be hanged?

‘Sinclair, [so I will still call her,] upon this representation of
Polly, foresaw, she said, the ruin of her poor house in the issue of
this strange business; and the infamous Sally and Dorcas bore their
parts in the apprehension: and this put them upon thinking it advisable
for the future, that the street-door should generally in the day-time
be only left upon a bolt-latch, as they called it, which any body might
open on the inside; and that the key should be kept in the door; that
their numerous comers and goers, as they called their guests, should be
able to give evidence, that she might have gone out if she would: not
forgetting, however, to renew their orders to Will. to Dorcas, to
Mabell, and the rest, to redouble their vigilance on this occasion, to
prevent her escape: none of them doubting, at the same time, that her
love of a man so considerable in their eyes, and the prospect of what
was to happen, as she had reason to believe, on Thursday, her uncle’s
birth-day, would (though perhaps not till the last hour, for her pride
sake, was their word) engage her to change her temper.

‘They believe, that she discovered the key to be left in the door; for
she was down more than once to walk in the little garden, and seemed to
cast her eye each time to the street-door.

‘About eight yesterday morning, an hour after Polly had left her, she
told Mabell, she was sure she should not live long; and having a good
many suits of apparel, which after her death would be of no use to any
body she valued, she would give her a brown lustring gown, which, with
some alterations to make it more suitable to her degree, would a great
while serve her for a Sunday wear; for that she (Mabell) was the only
person in that house of whom she could think without terror or
antipathy.

‘Mabell expressing her gratitude upon the occasion, the lady said, she
had nothing to employ herself about, and if she could get a workwoman
directly, she would look over her things then, and give her what she
intended for her.

‘Her mistress’s mantua-maker, the maid replied, lived but a little way
off: and she doubted not that she could procure her, or one of the
journey-women to alter the gown out of hand.

‘I will give you also, said she, a quilted coat, which will require but
little alteration, if any; for you are much about my stature: but the
gown I will give directions about, because the sleeves and the robings
and facings must be altered for your wear, being, I believe, above your
station: and try, said she, if you can get the workwoman, and we’ll
advise about it. If she cannot come now, let her come in the afternoon;
but I had rather now, because it will amuse me to give you a lift.

‘Then stepping to the window, it rains, said she, [and so it had done
all the morning:] slip on the hood and short cloak I have seen you
wear, and come to me when you are ready to go out, because you shall
bring me in something that I want.

‘Mabell equipped herself accordingly, and received her commands to buy
her some trifles, and then left her; but in her way out, stept into the
back parlour, where Dorcas was with Mrs. Sinclair, telling her where
she was going, and on what account, bidding Dorcas look out till she
came back. So faithful as the wench to the trust reposed in her, and so
little had the lady’s generosity wrought upon her.

‘Mrs. Sinclair commended her; Dorcas envied her, and took her cue: and
Mabell soon returned with the mantua-maker’s journey-woman; (she
resolved, she said, but she would not come without her); and then
Dorcas went off guard.

‘The lady looked out the gown and petticoat, and before the workwoman
caused Mabell to try it on; and, that it might fit the better, made the
willing wench pull off her upper-petticoat, and put on that she gave
her. Then she bid them go into Mr. Lovelace’s apartment, and contrive
about it before the pier-glass there, and stay till she came to them,
to give them her opinion.

‘Mabell would have taken her own clothes, and hood, and short cloak
with her: but her lady said, No matter; you may put them on again here,
when we have considered about the alterations: there’s no occasion to
litter the other room.

‘They went; and instantly, as it is supposed, she slipt on Mabell’s
gown and petticoat over her own, which was white damask, and put on the
wench’s hood, short cloak, and ordinary apron, and down she went.

‘Hearing somebody tripping along the passage, both Will. and Dorcas
whipt to the inner-hall door, and saw her; but, taking her for Mabell,
Are you going far, Mabell? cried Will.

‘Without turning her face, or answering, she held out her hand,
pointing to the stairs; which they construed as a caution for them to
look out in her absence; and supposing she would not be long gone, as
she had not in form, repeated her caution to them, up went Will,
tarrying at the stairs-head in expectation of the supposed Mabell’s
return.

‘Mabell and the workwoman waited a good while, amusing themselves not
disagreeably, the one with contriving in the way of her business, the
other delighting herself with her fine gown and coat. But at last,
wondering the lady did not come in to them, Mabell tiptoed it to her
door, and tapping, and not being answered, stept into the chamber.

‘Will. at that instant, from his station at the stairs-head, seeing
Mabell in her lady’s clothes; for he had been told of the present,
[gifts to servants fly from servant to servant in a minute,] was very
much surprised, having, as he thought, just seen her go out in her own;
and stepping up, met her at the door. How the devil can this be? said
he: just now you went out in your own dress! How came you here in this?
and how could you pass me unseen? but nevertheless, kissing her, said,
he would now brag he had kissed his lady, or one in her clothes.

‘I am glad, Mr. William, cried Mabell, to see you here so diligently.
But know you where my lady is?

‘In my master’s apartment, answered Will. Is she not? Was she not
talking with you this moment?

‘No, that’s Mrs. Dolins’s journey-woman.

‘They both stood aghast, as they said; Will, again recollecting he had
seen Mabell, as he thought, go out in her own clothes. And while they
were debating and wondering, up comes Dorcas with your fourth letter,
just then brought for the lady, and seeing Mabell dressed out, (whom
she had likewise beheld a little before), as she supposed, in her
common clothes; she joined in the wonder; till Mabell, re-entering the
lady’s apartment, missed her own clothes; and then suspecting what had
happened, and letting the others into the ground of the suspicion, they
all agreed that she had certainly escaped. And then followed such an
uproar of mutual accusation, and you should have done this, and you
have done that, as alarmed the whole house; every apartment in both
houses giving up its devil, to the number of fourteen or fifteen,
including the mother and her partners.

‘Will. told them his story; and then ran out, as on the like occasion
formerly, to make inquiry whether the lady was seen by any of the
coachmen, chairmen, or porters, plying in that neighbourhood: while
Dorcas cleared herself immediately, and that at the poor Mabell’s
expense, who made a figure as guilty as awkward, having on the
suspected price of her treachery; which Dorcas, out of envy, was ready
to tear from her back.

‘Hereupon all the pack opened at the poor wench, while the mother
foamed at the mouth, bellowed out her orders for seizing the suspected
offender; who could neither be heard in her own defence, nor had she
been heard, would have been believed.

‘That such a perfidious wretch should ever disgrace her house, was the
mother’s cry; good people might be corrupted; but it was a fine thing
if such a house as her’s could not be faithfully served by cursed
creatures who were hired knowing the business they were to be employed
in, and who had no pretence to principle!—D—n her, the wretch
proceeded!—She had no patience with her! call the cook, and call the
scullion!

‘They were at hand.

‘See, that guilty pyeball devil, was her word—(her lady’s gown upon her
back)—but I’ll punish her for a warning to all betrayers of their
trust. Put on the great gridiron this moment, [an oath or a curse at
every word:] make up a roaring fire—the cleaver bring me this
instant—I’ll cut her into quarters with my own hands; and carbonade and
broil the traitress for a feast to all the dogs and cats in the
neighbourhood, and eat the first slice of the toad myself, without salt
or pepper.

‘The poor Mabell, frighted out of her wits, expected every moment to be
torn in pieces, having half a score open-clawed paws upon her all at
once. She promised to confess all. But that all, when she had obtained
a hearing, was nothing: for nothing had she to confess.

‘Sally, hereupon with a curse of mercy, ordered her to retire;
undertaking that she and Polly would examine her themselves, that they
might be able to write all particulars to his honour; and then, if she
could not clear herself, or, if guilty, give some account of the lady,
(who had been so wicked as to give them all this trouble,) so as they
might get her again, then the cleaver and gridiron might go to work
with all their heart.

‘The wench, glad of this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was
laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner,
whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her
relations. And this flight, which was certainly more owing to terror
than guilt, was, in the true Old Bailey construction, made a
confirmation of the latter.’

These are the particulars of Miss Harlowe’s flight. Thou’lt hardly
think me too minute.—How I long to triumph over thy impatience and fury
on the occasion!

Let me beseech thee, my dear Lovelace, in thy next letter, to rave most
gloriously!—I shall be grievously disappointed if thou dost not.

Where, Lovelace, can the poor lady be gone? And who can describe the
distress she must be in?

By thy former letters, it may be supposed, that she can have very
little money: nor, by the suddenness of her flight, more clothes than
those she has on. And thou knowest who once said,* ‘Her parents will
not receive her. Her uncles will not entertain her. Her Norton is in
their direction, and cannot. Miss Howe dare not. She has not one friend
or intimate in town—entirely a stranger to it.’ And, let me add, has
been despoiled of her honour by the man for whom she had made all these
sacrifices; and who stood bound to her by a thousand oaths and vows, to
be her husband, her protector, and friend!

* See Vol. IV. Letter XXI.

How strong must be her resentment of the barbarous treatment she has
received! how worthy of herself, that it has made her hate the man she
once loved! and, rather than marry him, choose to expose her disgrace
to the whole world: to forego the reconciliation with her friends which
her heart was so set upon: and to hazard a thousand evils to which her
youth and her sex may too probably expose an indigent and friendly
beauty!

Rememberest thou not that home push upon thee, in one of the papers
written in her delirium; of which, however it savours not?——

I will assure thee, that I have very often since most seriously
reflected upon it: and as thy intended second outrage convinces me that
it made no impression upon thee then, and perhaps thou hast never
thought of it since, I will transcribe the sentence.

‘If, as religion teaches us, God will judge us, in a great measure! by
our benevolent or evil actions to one another—O wretch! bethink thee,
in time bethink thee, how great must be thy condemnation.’*

* See Vol. VI. Letter XVI.

And is this amiable doctrine the sum of religion? Upon my faith,
believe it is. For, to indulge a serious thought, since we are not
atheists, except in practice, does God, the BEING of Beings, want any
thing of us for HIMSELF! And does he not enjoin us works of mercy to
one another, as the means to obtain his mercy? A sublime principle, and
worthy of the SUPREME SUPERINTENDENT and FATHER of all things!—But if
we are to be judged by this noble principle, what, indeed, must be thy
condemnation on the score of this lady only? and what mine, and what
all our confraternity’s, on the score of other women: though we are
none of us half so bad as thou art, as well for want of inclination, I
hope, as of opportunity!

I must add, that, as well for thy own sake, as for the lady’s, I wish
ye were yet to be married to each other. It is the only medium that can
be hit upon to salve the honour of both. All that’s past may yet be
concealed from the world, and from all her sufferings, if thou
resolvest to be a tender and kind husband to her.

And if this really be thy intention, I will accept with pleasure of a
commission from thee that shall tend to promote so good an end,
whenever she can be found; that is to say, if she will admit to her
presence a man who professes friendship to thee. Nor can I give a
greater demonstration, that I am

Thy sincere friend, J. BELFORD.

P.S. Mabell’s clothes were thrown into the passage this morning: nobody
knows by whom.

 LETTER XLIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. FRIDAY, JUNE 30.

I am ruined, undone, blown up, destroyed, and worse than annihilated,
that’s certain!—But was not the news shocking enough, dost thou think,
without thy throwing into the too-weighty scale reproaches, which thou
couldst have had no opportunity to make but for my own voluntary
communications? at a time too, when, as it falls out, I have another
very sensible disappointment to struggle with?

I imagine, if there be such a thing as future punishment, it must be
none of the smallest mortifications, that a new devil shall be punished
by a worse old one. And, take that! And, take that! to have the old
satyr cry to the screaming sufferer, laying on with a
cat-o’-nine-tails, with a star of burning brass at the end of each:
and, for what! for what!—-Why, if the truth may be fairly told, for not
being so bad a devil as myself.

Thou art, surely, casuist good enough to know, (what I have insisted
upon* heretofore,) that the sin of seducing a credulous and easy girl,
is as great as that of bringing to your lure an incredulous and
watchful one.

* See Vol. IV. Letter XVII.

However ungenerous an appearance what I am going to say may have from
my pen, let me tell thee, that if such a woman as Miss Harlowe chose to
enter into the matrimonial state, [I am resolved to disappoint thee in
thy meditated triumph over my rage and despair!] and, according to the
old patriarchal system, to go on contributing to get sons and
daughters, with no other view than to bring them up piously, and to be
good and useful members of the commonwealth, what a devil had she to
do, to let her fancy run a gadding after a rake? one whom she knew to
be a rake?

Oh! but truly she hoped to have the merit of reclaiming him. She had
formed pretty notions how charming it would look to have a penitent of
her own making dangling at her side at church, through an applauding
neighbourhood: and, as their family increased, marching with her
thither, at the head of their boys and girls, processionally, as it
were, boasting of the fruits of their honest desires, as my good lord
bishop has it in his license. And then, what a comely sight, all
kneeling down together in one pew, according to eldership as we have
seen in effigy, a whole family upon some old monument, where the honest
chevalier in armour is presented kneeling, with up-lifted hands, and
half a dozen jolter-headed crop-eared boys behind him, ranged gradatim,
or step-fashion according to age and size, all in the same
posture—facing his pious dame, with a ruff about her neck, and as many
whey-faced girls all kneeling behind her: an altar between them, and an
open book upon it: over their heads semiluminary rays darting from
gilded clouds, surrounding an achievement-motto, IN COELO SALUS—or
QUIES—perhaps, if they have happened to live the usual married life of
brawl and contradiction.

It is certainly as much my misfortune to have fallen in with Miss
Clarissa Harlowe, were I to have valued my reputation or ease, as it is
that of Miss Harlowe to have been acquainted with me. And, after all,
what have I done more than prosecute the maxim, by which thou and I and
every rake are governed, and which, before I knew this lady, we have
pursued from pretty girl to pretty girl, as fast as we have set one
down, taking another up;—just as the fellows do with their flying
coaches and flying horses at a country fair——with a Who rides next! Who
rides next!

But here in the present case, to carry on the volant metaphor, (for I
must either be merry, or mad,) is a pretty little miss just come out of
her hanging-sleeve-coat, brought to buy a pretty little fairing; for
the world, Jack, is but a great fair, thou knowest; and, to give thee
serious reflection for serious, all its joys but tinselled
hobby-horses, gilt gingerbread, squeaking trumpets, painted drums, and
so forth.

Now behold this pretty little miss skimming from booth to booth, in a
very pretty manner. One pretty little fellow called Wyerley, perhaps;
another jiggeting rascal called Biron, a third simpering varlet of the
name of Symmes, and a more hideous villain than any of the reset, with
a long bag under his arm, and parchment settlements tagged to his
heels, yelped Solmes: pursue her from raree-show to raree-show,
shouldering upon one another at every turn, stopping when she stops,
and set a spinning again when she moves. And thus dangled after, but
still in the eye of her watchful guardians, traverses the pretty little
miss through the whole fair, equally delighted and delighting: till at
last, taken with the invitation of the laced-hat orator, and seeing
several pretty little bib-wearers stuck together in the flying-coaches,
cutting safely the yielding air, in the one-go-up the other go-down
picture-of-the-world vehicle, and all with as little fear as wit, is
tempted to ride next.

In then suppose she slily pops, when none of her friends are near her:
And if, after two or three ups and downs, her pretty head turns giddy,
and she throws herself out of the coach when at its elevation, and so
dashes out her pretty little brains, who can help it?—And would you
hang the poor fellow, whose professed trade it was to set the pretty
little creature a flying?

’Tis true, this pretty little miss, being a very pretty little miss,
being a very much-admired little miss, being a very good little miss,
who always minded her book, and had passed through her sampler-doctrine
with high applause; had even stitched out, in gaudy propriety of
colors, an Abraham offering up Isaac, a Sampson and the Philistines;
and flowers, and knots, and trees, and the sun and the moon, and the
seven stars, all hung up in frames with glasses before them, for the
admiration of her future grand children: who likewise was entitled to a
very pretty little estate: who was descended from a pretty little
family upwards of one hundred years gentility; which lived in a very
pretty little manner, respected a very little on their own accounts, a
great deal on her’s:——

For such a pretty little miss as this to come to so great a misfortune,
must be a very sad thing: But, tell me, would not the losing of any
ordinary child, of any other less considerable family, or less shining
or amiable qualities, have been as great and heavy a loss to that
family, as the losing this pretty little miss could be to her’s?

To descend to a very low instance, and that only as to personality;
hast thou any doubt, that thy strong-muscled bony-faced was as much
admired by thy mother, as if it had been the face of a Lovelace, or any
other handsome fellow? And had thy picture been drawn, would she have
forgiven the painter, had he not expressed so exactly thy lineaments,
as that every one should have discerned the likeness? The handsome
likeness is all that is wished for. Ugliness made familiar to us, with
the partiality natural to fond parents, will be beauty all the world
over.—Do thou apply.

But, alas! Jack, all this is but a copy of my countenance, drawn to
evade thy malice!—Though it answer thy unfriendly purpose to own it, I
cannot forbear to own it, that I am stung to the very soul with this
unhappy—accident, must I call it!—Have I nobody, whose throat, either
for carelessness or treachery, I ought to cut, in order to pacify my
vengeance?

When I reflect upon my last iniquitous intention, the first outrage so
nobly resented, as well as, so far as she was able, so nobly resisted,
I cannot but conclude, that I was under the power of fascination from
these accursed Circes; who, pretending to know their own sex, would
have it, that there is in every woman a yielding, or a weak-resisting
moment to be met with: and that yet, and yet, and yet, I had not tried
enough; but that, if neither love nor terror should enable me to hit
that lucky moment, when, by help of their cursed arts, she was once
overcome, she would be for ever overcome:—appealing to all my
experience, to all my knowledge of the sex, for justification of their
assertion.

My appeal to experience, I own, was but too favourable to their
argument: For dost thou think I could have held my purpose against such
an angel as this, had I ever before met with a woman so much in earnest
to defend her honour against the unwearied artifices and perseverance
of the man she loved? Why then were there not more examples of a virtue
so immovable? Or, why was this singular one to fall to my lot? except
indeed to double my guilt; and at the same time to convince all that
should hear her story, that there are angels as well as devils in the
flesh?

So much for confession; and for the sake of humouring my conscience;
with a view likewise to disarm thy malice by acknowledgement: since no
one shall say worse of me, than I will of myself on this occasion.

One thing I will nevertheless add, to show the sincerity of my
contrition—’Tis this, that if thou canst by any means find her out
within these three days, or any time before she has discovered the
stories relating to Captain Tomlinson and her uncle to be what they
are; and if thou canst prevail upon her to consent, I will actually, in
thy presence and his, (he to represent her uncle,) marry her.

I am still in hopes it may be so—she cannot be long concealed—I have
already set all engines at work to find her out! and if I do, what
indifferent persons, [and no one of her friends, as thou observest,
will look upon her,] will care to embroil themselves with a man of my
figure, fortune, and resolution? Show her this part, then, or any other
part of this letter, at thy own discretion, if thou canst find her:
for, after all, methinks, I would be glad that this affair, which is
bad enough in itself, should go off without worse personal consequences
to any body else: and yet it runs in my mind, I know not why, that,
sooner or later it will draw a few drops of blood after it; except she
and I can make it up between ourselves. And this may be another reason
why she should not carry her resentment too far—not that such an affair
would give me much concern neither, were I to choose any man of men,
for I heartily hate all her family, but herself; and ever shall.

Let me add, that the lady’s plot to escape appears to me no
extraordinary one. There was much more luck than probability that it
should do: since, to make it succeed, it was necessary that Dorcas and
Will., and Sinclair and her nymphs, should be all deceived, or off
their guard. It belongs to me, when I see them, to give them my hearty
thanks that they were; and that their selfish care to provide for their
own future security, should induce them to leave their outward door
upon their bolt-latch, and be curs’d to them.

Mabell deserves a pitch suit and a bonfire, rather than the lustring;
and as her clothes are returned, let the lady’s be put to her others,
to be sent to her when it can be told whither—but not till I give the
word neither; for we must get the dear fugitive back again if possible.

I suppose that my stupid villain, who knew not such a goddess-shaped
lady with a mien so noble, from the awkward and bent-shouldered Mabell,
has been at Hampstead to see after her. And yet I hardly think she
would go thither. He ought to go through every street where bills for
lodgings are up, to inquire after a new-comer. The houses of such as
deal in women’s matters, and tea, coffee, and such-like, are those to
be inquired at for her. If some tidings be not quickly heard of her, I
would not have either Dorcas, Will., or Mabell, appear in my sight,
whatever their superiors think fit to do.

This, though written in character, is a very long letter, considering
it is not a narrative one, or a journal of proceedings, like most of my
former; for such will unavoidably and naturally, as I may say, run into
length. But I have so used myself to write a great deal of late, that I
know not how to help it. Yet I must add to its length, in order to
explain myself on a hint I gave at the beginning of it; which was, that
I have another disappointment, besides this of Miss Harlowe’s escape,
to bemoan.

And what dost thou think it is? Why, the old Peer, pox of his tough
constitution, (for that malady would have helped him on,) has made
shift by fire and brimstone, and the devil knows what, to force the
gout to quit the counterscarp of his stomach, just as it had collected
all its strength, in order to storm the citadel of his heart. In short,
they have, by the mere force of stink-pots, hand-granades, and
pop-guns, driven the slow-working pioneer quite out of the trunk into
the extremities; and there it lies nibbling and gnawing upon his great
toe; when I had a fair end of the distemper and the distempered.

But I, who could write to thee of laudanum, and the wet cloth,
formerly, yet let 8000£. a year slip through my fingers, when I had
entered upon it more than in imagination, [for I had begun to ask the
stewards questions, and to hear them talk of fines and renewals, and
such sort of stuff,] deserve to be mortified.

Thou canst not imagine how differently the servants, and even my
cousins, look upon me, since yesterday, to what they did before.
Neither the one nor the other bow or courtesy half so low—nor am I a
quarter so often his honour and your honour, as I was within these few
hours, with the former: and as to the latter—it is cousin Bobby again,
with the usual familiarity, instead of Sir, and Sir, and If you please,
Mr. Lovelace. And now they have the insolence to congratulate me on the
recovery of the best of uncles; while I am forced to seem as much
delighted as they, when, would it do me good, I could sit down and cry
my eyes out.

I had bespoke my mourning in imagination, after the example of a
certain foreign minister, who, before the death, or even last illness
of Charles II., as honest White Kennet tells us, had half exhausted
Blackwell-hall of its sables—an indication, as the historian would
insinuate, that the monarch was to be poisoned, and the ambassador in
the secret.—And yet, fool that I was, I could not take the hint—What
the devil does a man read history for, if he cannot profit by the
examples he find in it?

But thus, Jack, is an observation of the old Peer’s verified, that one
misfortune seldom comes alone: and so concludes

Thy doubly mortified LOVELACE.

 LETTER L

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE WEDNESDAY NIGHT, JUNE 28.

O MY DEAREST MISS HOWE!

Once more have I escaped—But, alas! I, my best self, have not
escaped!—Oh! your poor Clarissa Harlowe! you also will hate me, I
fear!——

Yet you won’t, when you know all!

But no more of my self! my lost self. You that can rise in a morning to
be blest, and to bless; and go to rest delighted with your own
reflections, and in your unbroken, unstarting slumbers, conversing with
saints and angels, the former only more pure than yourself, as they
have shaken off the incumbrance of body; you shall be my subject, as
you have long, long, been my only pleasure. And let me, at awful
distance, revere my beloved Anna Howe, and in her reflect upon what her
Clarissa Harlowe once was!

Forgive, O forgive my rambling. My peace is destroyed. My intellects
are touched. And what flighty nonsense must you read, if you now will
vouchsafe to correspond with me, as formerly!

O my best, my dearest, my only friend! what a tale have I to
unfold!—But still upon self, this vile, this hated self!—I will shake
it off, if possible; and why should I not, since I think, except one
wretch, I hate nothing so much? Self, then, be banished from self one
moment (for I doubt it will be for no longer) to inquire after a dearer
object, my beloved Anna Howe!—whose mind, all robed in spotless white,
charms and irradiates—But what would I say?——

And how, my dearest friend, after this rhapsody, which on re-perusal, I
would not let go, but to show you what a distracted mind dictates to my
trembling pen! How do you? You have been very ill, it seems. That you
are recovered, my dear, let me hear. That your mother is well, pray let
me hear, and hear quickly. This comfort surely is owing to me; for if
life is no worse than chequer-work, I must now have a little white to
come, having seen nothing but black, all unchequered dismal black, for
a great, great while.

And what is all this wild incoherence for? It is only to beg to know
how you have been, and how you do now, by a line directed for Mrs.
Rachel Clark, at Mr. Smith’s, a glove-shop, in King-street,
Covent-garden; which (although my abode is secret to every body else)
will reach the hands of—your unhappy—but that’s not enough——

Your miserable CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LI

MRS. HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [SUPERSCRIBED AS DIRECTED IN THE
PRECEDING.] FRIDAY, JUNE 30.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE,

You will wonder to receive a letter from me. I am sorry for the great
distress you seem to be in. Such a hopeful young lady as you were! But
see what comes of disobedience to parents!

For my part; although I pity you, yet I much more pity your poor father
and mother. Such education as they gave you! such improvement as you
made! and such delight as they took in you!—And all come to this!—

But pray, Miss, don’t make my Nancy guilt of your fault; which is that
of disobedience. I have charged her over and over not to correspond
with one who had made such a giddy step. It is not to her reputation, I
am sure. You know that I so charged her; yet you go on corresponding
together, to my very great vexation; for she has been very perverse
upon it more than once. Evil communication, Miss—you know the rest.

Here, people cannot be unhappy by themselves, but they must invoke
their friends and acquaintance whose discretion has kept them clear of
their errors, into near as much unhappiness as if they had run into the
like of their own heads! Thus my poor daughter is always in tears and
grief. And she has postponed her own felicity, truly, because you are
unhappy.

If people, who seek their own ruin, could be the only sufferers by
their headstrong doings, it were something: But, O Miss, Miss! what
have you to answer for, who have made as many grieved hearts as have
known you! The whole sex is indeed wounded by you: For, who but Miss
Clarissa Harlowe was proposed by every father and mother for a pattern
for their daughters?

I write a long letter, where I proposed to say but a few words; and
those to forbid your writing to my Nancy: and this as well because of
the false step you have made, as because it will grieve her poor heart,
and do you no good. If you love her, therefore, write not to her. Your
sad letter came into my hands, Nancy being abroad: and I shall not show
it her: for there would be no comfort for her, if she saw it, nor for
me, whose delight she is—as you once was to your parents.—

But you seem to be sensible enough of your errors now.—So are all giddy
girls, when it is too late: and what a crest-fallen figure then do the
consequences of their self-willed obstinacy and headstrongness compel
them to make!

I may say too much: only as I think it proper to bear that testimony
against your rashness which it behoves every careful parent to bear:
and none more than

Your compassionating, well-wishing ANNABELLA HOWE.

I send this by a special messenger, who has business only so far as
Barnet, because you shall have no need to write again; knowing how you
love writing: and knowing, likewise, that misfortune makes people
plaintive.

 LETTER LII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. HOWE. SATURDAY, JULY 1.

Permit me, Madam, to trouble you with a few lines, were it only to
thank you for your reproofs; which have nevertheless drawn fresh
streams of blood from a bleeding heart.

My story is a dismal story. It has circumstances in it that would
engage pity, and possibly a judgment not altogether unfavourable, were
those circumstances known. But it is my business, and shall be all my
business, to repent of my failings, and not endeavour to extenuate
them.

Nor will I seek to distress your worthy mind. If I cannot suffer alone,
I will make as few parties as I can in my sufferings. And, indeed, I
took up my pen with this resolution when I wrote the letter which has
fallen into your hands. It was only to know, and that for a very
particular reason, as well as for affection unbounded, if my dear Miss
Howe, from whom I had not heard of a long time, were ill; as I had been
told she was; and if so, how she now does. But my injuries being
recent, and my distresses having been exceeding great, self would crowd
into my letter. When distressed, the human mind is apt to turn itself
to every one, in whom it imagined or wished an interest, for pity and
consolation.—Or, to express myself better, and more concisely, in your
own words, misfortune makes people plaintive: And to whom, if not to a
friend, can the afflicted complain?

Miss Howe being abroad when my letter came, I flatter myself that she
is recovered. But it would be some satisfaction to me to be informed if
she has been ill. Another line from your hand would be too great a
favour: but if you will be pleased to direct any servant to answer yes,
or no, to that question, I will not be farther troublesome.

Nevertheless, I must declare, that my Miss Howe’s friendship was all
the comfort I had, or expected to have in this world; and a line from
her would have been a cordial to my fainting heart. Judge then, dearest
Madam, how reluctantly I must obey your prohibition—but yet I will
endeavour to obey it; although I should have hoped, as well from the
tenor of all that has passed between Miss Howe and me, as from her
established virtue, that she could not be tainted by evil
communication, had one or two letters been permitted. This, however, I
ask not for, since I think I have nothing to do but to beg of God (who,
I hope, has not yet withdrawn his grace from me, although he has
pleaded to let loose his justice upon my faults) to give me a truly
broken spirit, if it be not already broken enough, and then to take to
his mercy

The unhappy

CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Two favours, good Madam, I have to beg of you.—The first,—that you will
not let any of my relations know that you have heard from me. The
other,—that no living creature be apprized where I am to be heard of,
or directed to. This is a point that concerns me more than I can
express.—In short, my preservation from further evils may depend upon
it.

 LETTER LIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO HANNAH BURTON THURSDAY, JUNE 29.

MY GOOD HANNAH,

Strange things have happened to me, since you were dismissed my service
(so sorely against my will) and your pert fellow servant set over me.
But that must all be forgotten now—

How do you, my Hannah? Are you recovered of your illness? If you are,
do you choose to come and be with me? Or can you conveniently?

I am a very unhappy creature, and, being among all strangers, should be
very glad to have you with me, of whose fidelity and love I have had so
many acceptable instances.

Living or dying, I will endeavour to make it worth your while, my
Hannah.

If you are recovered, as I hope, and if you have a good place, it may
be they would bear with your absence, and suffer somebody in your room
for a month or so: and, by that time, I hope to be provided for, and
you may then return to your place.

Don’t let any of my friends know of this my desire: whether you can
come or not.

I am at Mr. Smith’s, a hosier’s and glove shop, in King-street,
Covent-garden.

You must direct to me by the name of Rachel Clark.

Do, my good Hannah, come if you can to your poor young mistress, who
always valued you, and always will whether you come or not.

I send this to your mother at St. Alban’s, not knowing where to direct
to you. Return me a line, that I may know what to depend upon: and I
shall see you have not forgotten the pretty hand you were taught, in
happy days, by

Your true friend, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LIV

HANNAH BURTON [IN ANSWER.] MONDAY, JULY 3.

HONORED MADDAM,

I have not forgot to write, and never will forget any thing you, my
dear young lady, was so good as to larn me. I am very sorrowful for
your misfortens, my dearest young lady; so sorrowfull, I do not know
what to do. Gladd at harte would I be to be able to come to you. But
indeed I have not been able to stir out of my rome here at my mother’s
ever since I was forsed to leave my plase with a roomatise, which has
made me quite and clene helpless. I will pray for you night and day, my
dearest, my kindest, my goodest young lady, who have been so badly
used; and I am very sorry I cannot come to do you love and sarvice;
which will ever be in the harte of mee to do, if it was in my power:
who am

Your most dutiful servant to command, HANNAH BURTON.

 LETTER LV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON THURSDAY, JUNE 29.

MY DEAR MRS. NORTON,

I address myself to you, after a very long silence, (which, however,
was not owing either to want of love or duty,) principally to desire
you to satisfy me in two or three points, which it behoves me to know.

My father, and all the family, I am informed, are to be at my uncle
Harlowe’s this day, as usual. Pray acquaint me, if they have been
there? And if they were cheerful on the anniversary occasion? And also,
if you have heard of any journey, or intended journey, of my brother,
in company with Captain Singleton and Mr. Solmes?

Strange things have happened to me, my dear, worthy and maternal
friend—very strange things!—Mr. Lovelace has proved a very barbarous
and ungrateful man to me. But, God be praised, I have escaped from him.
Being among absolute strangers (though I think worthy folks) I have
written to Hannah Burton to come and be with me. If the good creature
fall in your way, pray encourage her to come to me. I always intended
to have her, she knows: but hoped to be in happier circumstances.

Say nothing to any of my friends that you have heard from me.

Pray, do you think my father would be prevailed upon, if I were to
supplicate him by letter, to take off the heavy curse he laid upon me
at my going from Harlowe-place? I can expect no other favour from him.
But that being literally fulfilled as to my prospects in this life, I
hope it will be thought to have operated far enough; and my heart is so
weak!—it is very weak!—But for my father’s own sake—what should I
say!—Indeed I hardly know how I ought to express myself on this sad
subject!—but it will give ease to my mind to be released from it.

I am afraid my Poor, as I used to call the good creatures to whose
necessities I was wont to administer by your faithful hands, have
missed me of late. But now, alas! I am poor myself. It is not the least
aggravation of my fault, nor of my regrets, that with such inclinations
as God has given me, I have put it out of my power to do the good I
once pleased myself to think I was born to do. It is a sad thing, my
dearest Mrs. Nortin, to render useless to ourselves and the world, by
our own rashness, the talents which Providence has intrusted to us, for
the service of both.

But these reflections are now too late; and perhaps I ought to have
kept them to myself. Let me, however, hope that you love me still. Pray
let me hope that you do. And then, notwithstanding my misfortunes,
which have made me seem ungrateful to the kind and truly maternal pains
you have taken with me from my cradle, I shall have the happiness to
think that there is one worthy person, who hates not

The unfortunate CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Pray remember me to my foster-brother. I hope he continues dutiful and
good to you.

Be pleased to direct for Rachel Clark, at Mr. Smith’s, in King-street,
Covent-garden. But keep the direction an absolute secret.

 LETTER LVI

MRS. NORTON [IN ANSWER.] SATURDAY, JULY 1.

Your letter, my dearest young lady, cuts me to the heart! Why will you
not let me know all your distresses?—Yet you have said enough!

My son is very good to me. A few hours ago he was taken with a feverish
disorder. But I hope it will go off happily, if his ardour for business
will give him the recess from it which his good master is willing to
allow him. He presents his duty to you, and shed tears at hearing your
sad letter read.

You have been misinformed as to your family’s being at your uncle
Harlowe’s. They did not intend to be there. Nor was the day kept at
all. Indeed, they have not stirred out, but to church (and that but
three times) ever since the day you went away.—Unhappy day for them,
and for all who know you!—To me, I am sure, most particularly so!—My
heart now bleeds more and more for you.

I have not heard a syllable of such a journey as you mentioned of your
brother, Captain Singleton, and Mr. Solmes. There has been some talk
indeed of your brother’s setting out for his northern estates: but I
have not heard of it lately.

I am afraid no letter will be received from you. It grieves me to tell
you so, my dearest young lady. No evil can have happened to you, which
they do not expect to hear of; so great is their antipathy to the
wicked man, and so bad is his character.

I cannot but think hardly of their unforgiveness: but there is no
judging for others by one’s self. Nevertheless I will add, that, if you
had had as gentle spirits as mine, these evils had never happened
either to them or to you. I knew your virtue, and your love of virtue,
from your very cradle; and I doubted not but that, with God’s grace,
would always be your guard. But you could never be driven; nor was
there occasion to drive you—so generous, so noble, so discreet.—But how
does my love of your amiable qualities increase my affliction; as these
recollections must do your’s!

You are escaped, my dearest Miss—happily, I hope—that is to say, with
your honour—else, how great must be your distress!—Yet, from your
letter, I dread the worst.

I am very seldom at Harlowe-place. The house is not the house it used
to be, since you went from it. Then they are so relentless! And, as I
cannot say harsh things of the beloved child of my heart, as well as
bosom, they do not take it amiss that I stay away.

Your Hannah left her place ill some time ago! and, as she is still at
her mother’s at St. Alban’s, I am afraid she continues ill. If so, as
you are among strangers, and I cannot encourage you at present to come
into these parts, I shall think it my duty to attend you (let it be
taken as it will) as soon as my Tommy’s indisposition will permit;
which I hope will be soon.

I have a little money by me. You say you are poor yourself.—How
grievous are those words from one entitled and accustomed to
affluence!—Will you be so good to command it, my beloved young lady?—It
is most of it your own bounty to me. And I should take a pride to
restore it to its original owner.

Your Poor bless you, and pray for you continually. I have so managed
your last benevolence, and they have been so healthy, and have had such
constant employ, that it has held out; and will hold out till the
happier times return, which I continually pray for.

Let me beg of you, my dearest young lady, to take to yourself all those
aids which good persons, like you, draw from RELIGION, in support of
their calamities. Let your sufferings be what they will, I am sure you
have been innocent in your intention. So do not despond. None are made
to suffer above what they can, and therefore ought to bear.

We know not the methods of Providence, nor what wise ends it may have
to serve in its seemingly-severe dispensations to its poor creatures.

Few persons have greater reason to say this than myself. And since we
are apt in calamities to draw more comfort from example than precept,
you will permit me to remind you of my own lot: For who has had a
greater share of afflictions than myself?

To say nothing of the loss of an excellent mother, at a time of life
when motherly care is most wanted; the death of a dear father, who was
an ornament to his cloth, (and who had qualified me to be his scribe
and amanuensis,) just as he came within view of a preferment which
would have made his family easy, threw me friendless into the wide
world; threw me upon a very careless, and, which was much worse, a very
unkind husband. Poor man!—but he was spared long enough, thank God, in
a tedious illness, to repent of his neglected opportunities, and his
light principles; which I have always thought of with pleasure,
although I was left the more destitute for his chargeable illness, and
ready to be brought to bed, when he died, of my Tommy.

But this very circumstance, which I thought the unhappiest that I could
have been left in, (so short-sighted is human prudence!) became the
happy means of recommending me to your mother, who, in regard to my
character, and in compassion to my very destitute circumstances,
permitted me, as I made a conscience of not parting with my poor boy,
to nurse both you and him, born within a few days of each other. And I
have never since wanted any of the humble blessings which God has made
me contented with.

Nor have I known what a very great grief was, from the day of my poor
husband’s death till the day that your parents told me how much they
were determined that you should have Mr. Solmes; when I was apprized
not only of your aversion to him, but how unworthy he was of you: for
then I began to dread the consequences of forcing so generous a spirit;
and, till then, I never feared Mr. Lovelace, attracting as was his
person, and specious his manners and address. For I was sure you would
never have him, if he gave you not good reason to be convinced of his
reformation: nor till your friends were as well satisfied in it as
yourself. But that unhappy misunderstanding between your brother and
Mr. Lovelace, and their joining so violently to force you upon Mr.
Solmes, did all that mischief, which has cost you and them so dear, and
poor me all my peace! Oh! what has not this ungrateful, this
double-guilty man to answer for!

Nevertheless, you know not what God has in store for you yet!—But if
you are to be punished all your days here, for example sake, in a case
of such importance, for your one false step, be pleased to consider,
that this life is but a state of probation; and if you have your
purification in it, you will be the more happy. Nor doubt I, that you
will have the higher reward hereafter for submitting to the will of
Providence here with patience and resignation.

You see, my dearest Miss Clary, that I make no scruple to call the step
you took a false one. In you it was less excusable than it would have
been in any other young lady; not only because of your superior
talents, but because of the opposition between your character and his:
so that, if you had been provoked to quit your father’s house, it need
not to have been with him. Nor needed I, indeed, but as an instance of
my impartial love, to have written this to you.*

* Mrs. Norton, having only the family representation and invectives to
form her judgment upon, knew not that Clarissa had determined against
going off with Mr. Lovelace; nor how solicitous she had been to procure
for herself any other protection than his, when she apprehended that,
if she staid, she had no way to avoid being married to Mr. Solmes.

After this, it will have an unkind, and perhaps at this time an
unseasonable appearance, to express my concern that you have not before
favoured me with a line. Yet if you can account to yourself for your
silence, I dare say I ought to be satisfied; for I am sure you love me:
as I both love and honour you, and ever will, and the more for your
misfortunes.

One consolation, methinks, I have, even when I am sorrowing for your
calamities; and that is, that I know not any young person so qualified
to shine the brighter for the trials she may be exercised with: and yet
it is a consolation that ends in adding to my regrets for your
afflictions, because you are blessed with a mind so well able to bear
prosperity, and to make every body round you the better for it!—But I
will forbear till I know more.

Ruminating on every thing your melancholy letter suggests, and
apprehending, from the gentleness of your mind, the amiableness of your
person, and your youth, the farther misfortunes and inconveniencies to
which you may possibly be subjected, I cannot conclude without asking
for your leave to attend you, and that in a very earnest manner—and I
beg of you not to deny me, on any consideration relating to myself, or
even to the indisposition of my other beloved child, if I can be either
of use or of comfort to you. Were it, my dearest young lady, but for
two or three days, permit me to attend you, although my son’s illness
should increase, and compel me to come down again at the end of those
two or three days.—I repeat my request, likewise, that you will command
from me the little sum remaining in the hands of your bounty to your
Poor, as well as that dispensed to

Your ever-affectionate and faithful servant, JUDITH NORTON.

 LETTER LVII

MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO LADY BETTY LAWRANCE THURSDAY, JUNE 29.

MADAM,

I hope you’ll excuse the freedom of this address, from one who has not
the honour to be personally known to you, although you must have heard
much of Clarissa Harlowe. It is only to beg the favour of a line from
your Ladyship’s hand, (by the next post, if convenient,) in answer to
the following questions:

1. Whether you wrote a letter, dated, as I have a memorandum, Wedn.
June 7, congratulating your nephew Lovelace on his supposed nuptials,
as reported to you by Mr. Spurrier, your Ladyship’s steward, as from
one Captain Tomlinson:—and in it reproaching Mr. Lovelace, as guilty of
slight, &c. in not having acquainted your Ladyship and the family with
his marriage?

2. Whether your ladyship wrote to Miss Montague to meet you at Reading,
in order to attend you to your cousin Leeson’s, in Albemarle-street; on
your being obliged to be in town on your old chancery affair, I
remember are the words? and whether you bespoke your nephew’s
attendance there on Sunday night the 11th?

3. Whether your Ladyship and Miss Montague did come to town at that
time; and whether you went to Hampstead, on Monday, in a hired coach
and four, your own being repairing, and took from thence to town with
the young creature whom you visited there?

Your Ladyship will probably guess, that the questions are not asked for
reasons favourable to your nephew Lovelace. But be the answer what it
will, it can do him no hurt, nor me any good; only that I think I owe
it to my former hopes, (however deceived in them,) and even to charity,
that a person, of whom I was once willing to think better, should not
prove so egregiously abandoned, as to be wanting, in every instance, to
that veracity which is indispensable in the character of a gentleman.

Be pleased, Madam, to direct to me, (keeping the direction a secret for
the present,) to be left at the Belle-Savage, on Ludgate hill, till
called for. I am

Your Ladyship’s most humble servant, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LVIII

LADY BETTY LAWRANCE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE SATURDAY, JULY 1.

DEAR MADAM,

I find that all is not as it should be between you and my nephew
Lovelace. It will very much afflict me, and all his friends, if he has
been guilty of any designed baseness to a lady of your character and
merit.

We have been long in expectation of an opportunity to congratulate you
and ourselves upon an event most earnestly wished for by us all; since
our hopes of him are built upon the power you have over him: for if
ever man adored a woman, he is that man, and you, Madam, are that
woman.

Miss Montague, in her last letter to me, in answer to one of mine,
inquiring if she knew from him whether he could call you his, or was
likely soon to have that honour, has these words: ‘I know not what to
make of my cousin Lovelace, as to the point your Ladyship is so earnest
about. He sometimes says he is actually married to Miss Cl. Harlowe: at
other times, that it is her own fault if he be not.—He speaks of her
not only with love but with reverence: yet owns, that there is a
misunderstanding between them; but confesses that she is wholly
faultless. An angel, and not a woman, he says she is: and that no man
living can be worthy of her.’—

This is what my niece Montague writes.

God grant, my dearest young lady, that he may not have so heinously
offended you that you cannot forgive him! If you are not already
married, and refuse to be his, I shall lose all hopes that he ever will
marry, or be the man I wish him to be. So will Lord M. So will Lady
Sarah Sadleir.

I will now answer your questions: but indeed I hardly know what to
write, for fear of widening still more the unhappy difference between
you. But yet such a young lady must command every thing from me. This
then is my answer:

I wrote not any letter to him on or about the 7th of June.

Neither I nor my steward know any such man as Captain Tomlinson.

I wrote not to my niece to meet me at Reading, nor to accompany me to
my cousin Leeson’s in town.

My chancery affair, though, like most chancery affairs, it be of long
standing, is, nevertheless, now in so good a way, that it cannot give
me occasion to go to town.

Nor have I been in town these six months: nor at Hampstead for years.

Neither shall I have any temptation to go to town, except to pay my
congratulatory compliments to Mrs. Lovelace. On which occasion I should
go with the greatest pleasure; and should hope for the favour of your
accompanying me to Glenham-hall, for a month at least.

Be what will the reason of your inquiry, let me entreat you, my dear
young lady, for Lord M.’s sake; for my sake; for this giddy man’s sake,
soul as well as body; and for all our family’s sakes; not to suffer
this answer to widen differences so far as to make you refuse him, if
he already has not the honour of calling you his; as I am apprehensive
he has not, by your signing by your family-name.

And here let me offer to you my mediation to compose the difference
between you, be it what it will. Your cause, my dear young lady, cannot
be put into the hands of any body living more devoted to your service,
than into those of

Your sincere admirer, and humble servant, ELIZ. LAWRANCE.

 LETTER LIX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. HODGES ENFIELD, JUNE 22.

MRS. HODGES,

I am under a kind of necessity to write to you, having no one among my
relations to whom I dare write, or hope a line from if I did. It is but
to answer a question. It is this:

Whether you know any such man as Captain Tomlinson? and, if you do,
whether he be very intimate with my uncle Harlowe?

I will describe his person lest, possibly, he should go by another name
among you; although I know not why he should.

‘He is a thin, tallish man, a little pock-fretten, of a sallowish
complexion. Fifty years of age, or more. Of good aspect when he looks
up. He seems to be a serious man, and one who knows the world. He
stoops a little in the shoulders. Is of Berkshire. His wife of
Oxfordshire; and has several children. He removed lately into your
parts form Northamptonshire.’

I must desire you, Mrs. Hodges, that you will not let my uncle, nor any
of my relations, know that I write to you.

You used to say, that you would be glad to have it in your power to
serve me. That, indeed, was in my prosperity. But, I dare say, you will
not refuse me in a particular that will oblige me, without hurting
yourself.

I understand that my father, mother, and sister, and I presume, my
brother, and my uncle Antony, are to be at my uncle Harlowe’s this day.
God preserve them all, and may they rejoice in many happy birth-days!
You will write six words to me concerning their healths.

Direct, for a particular reason, to Mrs. Dorothy Salcombe, to be left
till called for, at the Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate-street.

You know my hand-writing well enough, were not the contents of the
letter sufficient to excuse my name, or any other subscription, than
that of

Your friend.

 LETTER LX

MRS. HODGES [IN ANSWER.] SAT. JULY 2.

MADDAM,

I return you an anser, as you wish me to doe. Master is acquented with
no sitch man. I am shure no sitch ever came to our house. And master
sturs very little out. He has no harte to stur out. For why? Your
obstinacy makes um not care to see one another. Master’s birth-day
never was kept soe before: for not a sole heere: and nothing but
sikeing and sorrowin from master to think how it yused to bee.

I axed master, if soe bee he knowed sitch a man as one Captain
Tomlinson? but said not whirfor I axed. He sed, No, not he.

Shure this is no trix nor forgery bruing against master by one
Tomlinson—Won knows not what company you may have been forsed to keep,
sen you went away, you knoe, Maddam; but Lundon is a pestilent plase;
and that ’Squire Luvless is a devil (for all he is sitch a like
gentleman to look to) as I hev herd every boddy say; and think as how
you have found by thiss.

I truste, Maddam, you wulde not let master cum to harme, if you knoed
it, by any body who may pretend to be acquented with him: but for fere,
I querid with myself if I shulde not tell him. But I was willin to show
you, that I wulde plessure you in advarsity, if advarsity be your lott,
as well as prosperity; for I am none of those that woulde doe
otherwiss. Soe no more from

Your humble sarvent, to wish you well, SARAH HODGES.

 LETTER LXI

MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO LADY BETTY LAWRANCE. MONDAY, JULY 3.

MADAM,

I cannot excuse myself from giving your Ladyship this one trouble more;
to thank you, as I most heartily do, for your kind letter.

I must own to you, Madam, that the honour of being related to ladies as
eminent for their virtue as for their descent, was at first no small
inducement with me to lend an ear to Mr. Lovelace’s address. And the
rather, as I was determined, had it come to effect, to do every thing
in my power to deserve your favourable opinion.

I had another motive, which I knew would of itself give me merit with
your whole family; a presumptuous one, (a punishably presumptuous one,
as it has proved,) in the hope that I might be an humble mean in the
hand of Providence to reclaim a man, who had, as I thought, good sense
enough to acknowledge the intended obligation, whether the generous
hope were to succeed or not.

But I have been most egregiously mistaken in Mr. Lovelace; the only
man, I persuade myself, pretending to be a gentleman, in whom I could
have been so much mistaken: for while I was endeavouring to save a
drowning wretch, I have been, not accidentally, but premeditatedly, and
of set purpose, drawn in after him. And he has had the glory to add to
the list of those he has ruined, a name, that, I will be bold to say,
would not have disparaged his own. And this, Madam, by means that would
shock humanity to be made acquainted with.

My whole end is served by your Ladyship’s answer to the questions I
took the liberty to put to you in writing. Nor have I a wish to make
the unhappy man more odious to you than is necessary to excuse myself
for absolutely declining your offered mediation.

When your Ladyship shall be informed of the following particulars:

That after he had compulsorily, as I may say, tricked me into the act
of going off with him, he could carry me to one of the vilest houses,
as it proved, in London:

That he could be guilty of a wicked attempt, in resentment of which, I
found means to escape from him to Hampstead:

That, after he had found me out there (I know not how) he could procure
two women, dressed out richly, to personate your Ladyship and Miss
Montague; who, under pretence of engaging me to make a visit in town to
your cousin Leeson, (promising to return with me that evening to
Hampstead,) betrayed me back again to the vile house: where, again made
a prisoner, I was first robbed of my senses; and then of my honour. Why
should I seek to conceal that disgrace from others which I cannot hide
from myself?

When your Ladyship shall know, that, in the shocking progress to this
ruin, wilful falsehoods, repeated forgeries, (particularly of one
letter from your Ladyship, another from Miss Montague, and a third from
Lord M.) and numberless perjuries, were not the least of his crimes:
you will judge, that I can have no principles that will make me worthy
of an alliance with ladies of your’s and your noble sister’s character,
if I could not from my soul declare, that such an alliance can never
now take place.

I will not offer to clear myself entirely of blame: but, as to him, I
have no fault to accuse myself of: my crime was, the corresponding with
him at first, when prohibited so to do by those who had a right to my
obedience; made still more inexcusable, by giving him a clandestine
meeting, which put me into the power of his arts. And for this I am
content to be punished: thankful, that at last I have escaped from him;
and have it in my power to reject so wicked a man for my husband: and
glad, if I may be a warning, since I cannot be an example: which once
(very vain, and very conceited, as I was) I proposed to myself to be.

All the ill I wish him is, that he may reform; and that I may be the
last victim to his baseness. Perhaps this desirable wish may be
obtained, when he shall see how his wickedness, his unmerited
wickedness! to a poor creature, made friendless by his cruel arts, will
end.

I conclude with my humble thanks to your Ladyship for your favourable
opinion of me; and with the assurance that I will be, while life is
lent me,

Your Ladyship’s grateful and obliged servant, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LXII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON SUNDAY EVENING, JULY 2.

How kindly, my beloved Mrs. Norton, do you soothe the anguish of a
bleeding heart! Surely you are mine own mother; and, by some
unaccountable mistake, I must have been laid to a family that, having
newly found out, or at least suspected, the imposture, cast me from
their hearts, with the indignation that such a discovery will warrant.

Oh! that I had been indeed your own child, born to partake of your
humble fortunes, an heiress only to that content in which you are so
happy! then should I have had a truly gentle spirit to have guided my
ductile heart, which force and ungenerous usage sit so ill upon: and
nothing of what has happened would have been.

But let me take heed that I enlarge not, by impatience, the breach
already made in my duty by my rashness! since, had I not erred, my
mother, at least, could never have been thought hard-hearted and
unforgiving. Am I not then answerable, not only for my own faults, but
for the consequences of them; which tend to depreciate and bring
disgrace upon a maternal character never before called in question?

It is kind, however, in you to endeavour to extenuate the faults of one
so greatly sensible of it: and could it be wiped off entirely, it would
render me more worthy of the pains you have taken in my education: for
it must add to your grief, as it does to my confusion, that, after such
promising beginnings, I should have so behaved as to be a disgrace
instead of a credit to you and my other friends.

But that I may not make you think me more guilty than I am, give me
leave briefly to assure you, that, when my story is known, I shall be
to more compassion than blame, even on the score of going away with Mr.
Lovelace.

As to all that happened afterwards, let me only say, that although I
must call myself a lost creature as to this world, yet have I this
consolation left me, that I have not suffered either for want of
circumspection, or through careful credulity or weakness. Not one
moment was I off my guard, or unmindful of your early precepts. But
(having been enabled to baffle many base contrivances) I was at last
ruined by arts the most inhuman. But had I not been rejected by every
friend, this low-hearted man had not dared, nor would have had
opportunity, to treat me as he has treated me.

More I cannot, at this time, nor need I say: and this I desire you to
keep to yourself, lest resentments should be taken up when I am gone,
that may spread the evil which I hope will end with me.

I have been misinformed, you say, as to my principal relations being at
my uncle Harlowe’s. The day, you say, was not kept. Nor have my brother
and Mr. Solmes—Astonishing!—What complicated wickedness has this
wretched man to answer for!—Were I to tell you, you would hardly
believe that there could have been such a heart in man.—

But one day you may know the whole story!—At present I have neither
inclination nor words—O my bursting heart!—Yet a happy, a wished
relief!—Were you present my tears would supply the rest!

I resume my pen!

And so you fear no letter will be received from me. But DON’T grieve to
tell me so! I expect every thing bad—and such is my distress, that had
you not bid me hope for mercy from the throne of mercy, I should have
been afraid that my father’s dreadful curse would be completed with
regard to both worlds.

For here, an additional misfortune!—In a fit of phrensical
heedlessness, I sent a letter to my beloved Miss Howe, without
recollecting her private address; and it has fallen into her angry
mother’s hands: and so that dear friend perhaps has anew incurred
displeasure on my account. And here too your worthy son is ill; and my
poor Hannah, you think, cannot come to me—O my dear Mrs. Norton, will
you, can you censure those whose resentments against me Heaven seems to
approve of? and will you acquit her whom that condemns?

Yet you bid me not despond.—I will not, if I can help it. And, indeed,
most seasonable consolation has your kind letter afforded me.—Yet to
God Almighty do I appeal, to avenge my wrongs, and vindicate my inno——

But hushed be my stormy passions!—Have I not but this moment said that
your letter gave me consolation?—May those be forgiven who hinder my
father from forgiving me!—and this, as to them, shall be the harshest
thing that shall drop from my pen.

But although your son should recover, I charge you, my dear Mrs.
Norton, that you do not think of coming to me. I don’t know still but
your mediation with my mother (although at present your interposition
would be so little attended to) may be of use to procure me the
revocation of that most dreadful part of my father’s curse, which only
remains to be fulfilled. The voice of Nature must at last be heard in
my favour, surely. It will only plead at first to my friends in the
still conscious plaintiveness of a young and unhardened beggar. But it
will grow more clamorous when I have the courage to be so, and shall
demand, perhaps, the paternal protection from farther ruin; and that
forgiveness, which those will be little entitled to expect, for their
own faults, who shall interpose to have it refused to me, for an
accidental, not a premeditated error: and which, but for them, I had
never fallen into.

But again, impatiency, founded perhaps on self-partiality, that strange
misleader! prevails.

Let me briefly say, that it is necessary to my present and future hopes
that you keep well with my family. And moreover, should you come, I may
be traced out by that means by the most abandoned of men. Say not then
that you think you ought to come up to me, let it be taken as it
will:—For my sake, let me repeat, (were my foster-brother recovered, as
I hope he is,) you must not come. Nor can I want your advice, while I
can write, and you can answer me. And write I will as often as I stand
in need of your counsel.

Then the people I am now with seem to be both honest and humane: and
there is in the same house a widow-lodger, of low fortunes, but of
great merit:—almost such another serious and good woman as the dear one
to whom I am now writing; who has, as she says, given over all other
thoughts of the world but such as should assist her to leave it
happily.—How suitable to my own views!—There seems to be a comfortable
providence in this at least—so that at present there is nothing of
exigence; nothing that can require, or even excuse, your coming, when
so many better ends may be answered by your staying where you are. A
time may come, when I shall want your last and best assistance: and
then, my dear Mrs. Norton—and then, I will speak it, and embrace it
with all my whole heart—and then, will it not be denied me by any body.

You are very obliging in your offer of money. But although I was forced
to leave my clothes behind me, yet I took several things of value with
me, which will keep me from present want. You’ll say, I have made a
miserable hand of it—so indeed I have—and, to look backwards, in a very
little while too.

But what shall I do, if my father cannot be prevailed upon to recall
his malediction? O my dear Mrs. Norton, what a weight must a father’s
curse have upon a heart so appreciative as mine!—Did I think I should
ever have a father’s curse to deprecate? And yet, only that the
temporary part of it is so terribly fulfilled, or I should be as
earnest for its recall, for my father’s sake, as for my own!

You must not be angry with me that I wrote not to you before. You are
very right and very kind to say you are sure I love you. Indeed I do.
And what a generosity, [so like yourself!] is there in your praise, to
attribute to me more than I merit, in order to raise an emulation to me
to deserve your praises!—you tell me what you expect from me in the
calamities I am called upon to bear. May I behave answerably!

I can a little account to myself for my silence to you, my kind, my
dear maternal friend! How equally sweetly and politely do you express
yourself on this occasion! I was very desirous, for your sake, as well
as for my own, that you should have it to say that we did not
correspond: had they thought we did, every word you could have dropt in
my favour would have been rejected; and my mother would have been
forbid to see you, or pay any regard to what you should say.

Then I had sometimes better and sometimes worse prospects before me. My
worst would only have troubled you to know: my better made me
frequently hope, that, by the next post, or the next, and so on for
weeks, I should have the best news to impart to you that then could
happen: cold as the wretch had made my heart to that best.—For how
could I think to write to you, with a confession that I was not
married, yet lived in the house (for I could not help it) with such a
man?—Who likewise had given it out to several, that we were actually
married, although with restrictions that depended on the reconciliation
with my friends? And to disguise the truth, or be guilty of a
falsehood, either direct or equivocal, that was what you had never
taught me.

But I might have written to you for advice, in my precarious situation,
perhaps you will think. But, indeed, my dear Mrs. Norton, I was not
lost for want of advice. And this will appear clear to you from what I
have already hinted, were I to explain myself no further:—For what need
had the cruel spoiler to have recourse to unprecedented arts—I will
speak out plainer still, (but you must not at present report it,) to
stupifying potions, and to the most brutal and outrageous force, had I
been wanting in my duty?

A few words more upon this grievous subject—

When I reflect upon all that has happened to me, it is apparent, that
this generally-supposed thoughtless seducer has acted by me upon a
regular and preconcerted plan of villany.

In order to set all his vile plots in motion, nothing was wanting, from
the first, but to prevail upon me, either by force or fraud, to throw
myself into his power: and when this was effected, nothing less than
the intervention of the paternal authority, (which I had not deserved
to be exerted in my behalf,) could have saved me from the effect of his
deep machinations. Opposition from any other quarter would but too
probably have precipitated his barbarous and ungrateful violence: and
had you yourself been with me, I have reason now to think, that somehow
or other you would have suffered in endeavouring to save me: for never
was there, as now I see, a plan of wickedness more steadily and
uniformly pursued than his has been, against an unhappy creature who
merited better of him: but the Almighty has thought fit, according to
the general course of His providence, to make the fault bring on its
own punishment: but surely not in consequence of my father’s dreadful
imprecation, ‘That I might be punished here,’ [O my mamma Norton, pray
with me, if so, that here it stop!] ‘by the very wretch in whom I had
placed my wicked confidence!’

I am sorry, for your sake, to leave off so heavily. Yet the rest must
be brief.

Let me desire you to be secret in what I have communicated to you; at
least till you have my consent to divulge it.

God preserve to you your more faultless child!

I will hope for His mercy, although I should not obtain that of any
earthly person.

And I repeat my prohibition:—You must not think of coming up to

Your ever dutiful CL. HARLOWE.

The obliging person, who left your’s for me this day, promised to call
to-morrow, to see if I should have any thing to return. I would not
lose so good an opportunity.

 LETTER LXIII

MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY NIGHT, JULY 3.

O the barbarous villany of this detestable man! And is there a man in
the world who could offer violence to so sweet a creature!

And are you sure you are now out of his reach?

You command me to keep secret the particulars of the vile treatment you
have met with; or else, upon an unexpected visit which Miss Harlowe
favoured me with, soon after I had received your melancholy letter, I
should have been tempted to own I had heard from you, and to have
communicated to her such parts of your two letters as would have
demonstrated your penitence, and your earnestness to obtain the
revocation of your father’s malediction, as well as his protection from
outrages that may still be offered to you. But then your sister would
probably have expected a sight of the letters, and even to have been
permitted to take them with her to the family.

Yet they must one day be acquainted with the sad story:—and it is
impossible but they must pity you, and forgive you, when they know your
early penitence, and your unprecedented sufferings; and that you have
fallen by the brutal force of a barbarous ravisher, and not by the vile
arts of a seducing lover.

The wicked man gives it out at Lord M.’s, as Miss Harlowe tells me,
that he is actually married to you—yet she believes it not: nor had I
the heart to let her know the truth.

She put it close to me, Whether I had not corresponded with you from
the time of your going away? I could safely tell her, (as I did,) that
I had not: but I said, that I was well informed, that you took
extremely to heart your father’s imprecation; and that, if she would
excuse me, I would say it would be a kind and sisterly part, if she
would use her interest to get you discharged from it.

Among other severe things, she told me, that my partial fondness for
you made me very little consider the honour of the rest of the family:
but, if I had not heard this from you, she supposed I was set on by
Miss Howe.

She expressed herself with a good deal of bitterness against that young
lady: who, it seems, every where, and to every body, (for you must
think that your story is the subject of all conversations,) rails
against your family; treating them, as your sister says, with contempt,
and even with ridicule.

I am sorry such angry freedoms are taken, for two reasons; first,
because such liberties never do any good. I have heard you own, that
Miss Howe has a satirical vein; but I should hope that a young lady of
her sense, and right cast of mind, must know that the end of satire is
not to exasperate, but amend; and should never be personal. If it be,
as my good father used to say, it may make an impartial person suspect
that the satirist has a natural spleen to gratify; which may be as
great a fault in him, as any of those which he pretends to censure and
expose in others.

Perhaps a hint of this from you will not be thrown away.

My second reason is, That these freedoms, from so warm a friend to you
as Miss Howe is known to be, are most likely to be charged to your
account.

My resentments are so strong against this vilest of men, that I dare
not touch upon the shocking particulars which you mention of his
baseness. What defence, indeed, could there be against so determined a
wretch, after you was in his power? I will only repeat my earnest
supplication to you, that, black as appearances are, you will not
despair. Your calamities are exceeding great; but then you have talents
proportioned to your trials. This every body allows.

Suppose the worst, and that your family will not be moved in your
favour, your cousin Morden will soon arrive, as Miss Harlowe told me.
If he should even be got over to their side, he will however see
justice done you; and then may you live an exemplary life, making
hundreds happy, and teaching young ladies to shun the snares in which
you have been so dreadfully entangled.

As to the man you have lost, is an union with such a perjured heart as
his, with such an admirable one as your’s, to be wished for? A base,
low-hearted wretch, as you justly call him, with all his pride of
ancestry; and more an enemy to himself with regard to his present and
future happiness than to you, in the barbarous and ungrateful wrongs he
has done you: I need not, I am sure, exhort you to despise such a man
as this, since not to be able to do so, would be a reflection upon a
sex to which you have always been an honour.

Your moral character is untainted: the very nature of your sufferings,
as you will observe, demonstrates that. Cheer up, therefore, your dear
heart, and do not despair; for is it not GOD who governs the world, and
permits some things, and directs others, as He pleases? and will He not
reward temporary sufferings, innocently incurred, and piously
supported, with eternal felicity?—And what, my dear, is this poor
needle’s point of NOW to a boundless eternity?

My heart, however, labours under a double affliction: For my poor boy
is very, very bad—a violent fever—nor can it be brought to
intermit.—Pray for him, my dearest Miss—for his recovery, if God see
fit.—I hope God will see fit—if not (how can I bear to suppose that!)
Pray for me, that he will give me that patience and resignation which I
have been wishing to you. I am, my dearest young lady,

Your ever affectionate JUDITH NORTON.

 LETTER LXIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON THURSDAY, JULY 6.

I ought not, especially at this time, to add to your afflictions—but
yet I cannot help communicating to you (who now are my only soothing
friend) a new trouble that has befallen me.

I had but one friend in the world, beside you; and she is utterly
displeased with me.* It is grievous, but for one moment, to lie under a
beloved person’s censure; and this through imputations that affect
one’s honour and prudence. There are points so delicate, you know, my
dear Mrs. Norton, that it is a degree of dishonour to have a
vindication of one’s self from them appear to be necessary. In the
present case, my misfortune is, that I know not how to account, but by
guess (so subtle have been the workings of the dark spirit I have been
unhappily entangled by) for some of the facts that I am called upon to
explain.

Miss Howe, in short, supposes she has found a flaw in my character. I
have just now received her severe letter—but I shall answer it,
perhaps, in better temper, if I first consider your’s: for indeed my
patience is almost at an end. And yet I ought to consider, that
faithful are the wounds of a friend. But so many things at once! O my
dear Mrs. Norton, how shall so young a scholar in the school of
affliction be able to bear such heavy and such various evils!

But to leave this subject for a while, and turn to your letter.

I am very sorry Miss Howe is so lively in her resentments on my
account. I have always blamed her very freely for her liberties of this
sort with my friends. I once had a good deal of influence over her kind
heart, and she made all I said a law to her. But people in calamity
have little weight in any thing, or with any body. Prosperity and
independence are charming things on this account, that they give force
to the counsels of a friendly heart; while it is thought insolence in
the miserable to advise, or so much as to remonstrate.

Yet is Miss Howe an invaluable person: And is it to be expected that
she should preserve the same regard for my judgment that she had before
I forfeited all title to discretion? With what face can I take upon me
to reproach a want of prudence in her? But if I can be so happy as to
re-establish myself in her ever-valued opinion, I shall endeavour to
enforce upon her your just observation on this head.

You need not, you say, exhort me to despise such a man as him, by whom
I have suffered—indeed you need not: for I would choose the cruellest
death rather than to be his. And yet, my dear Mrs. Norton, I will own
to you, that once I could have loved him.—Ungrateful man!—had he
permitted me to love him, I once could have loved him. Yet he never
deserved love. And was not this a fault?—But now, if I can but keep out
of his hands, and obtain a last forgiveness, and that as well for the
sake of my dear friends’ future reflections, as for my own present
comfort, it is all I wish for.

Reconciliation with my friends I do not expect; nor pardon from them;
at least, till in extremity, and as a _viaticum_.

O my beloved Mrs. Norton, you cannot imagine what I have suffered!—But
indeed my heart is broken!—I am sure I shall not live to take
possession of that independence, which you think would enable me to
atone, in some measure, for my past conduct.

While this is my opinion, you may believe I shall not be easy till I
can obtain a last forgiveness.

I wish to be left to take my own course in endeavouring to procure this
grace. Yet know I not, at present, what that course shall be.

I will write. But to whom is my doubt. Calamity has not yet given me
the assurance to address myself to my FATHER. My UNCLES (well as they
once loved me) are hard hearted. They never had their masculine
passions humanized by the tender name of FATHER. Of my BROTHER I have
no hope. I have then but my MOTHER, and my SISTER, to whom I can
apply.—‘And may I not, my dearest Mamma, be permitted to lift up my
trembling eye to your all-cheering, and your once more than indulgent,
your fond eye, in hopes of seasonable mercy to the poor sick heart that
yet beats with life drawn from your own dearer heart?—Especially when
pardon only, and not restoration, is implored?’

Yet were I able to engage my mother’s pity, would it not be a mean to
make her still more unhappy than I have already made her, by the
opposition she would meet with, were she to try to give force to that
pity?

To my SISTER, then, I think, I will apply—Yet how hard-hearted has my
sister been!—But I will not ask for protection; and yet I am in hourly
dread that I shall want protection.—All I will ask for at present
(preparative to the last forgiveness I will implore) shall be only to
be freed from the heavy curse that seems to have operated as far is it
can operate as to this life—and, surely, it was passion, and not
intention, that carried it so far as to the other!

But why do I thus add to your distresses?—It is not, my dear Mrs.
Norton, that I have so much feeling for my own calamity that I have
none for your’s: since your’s is indeed an addition to my own. But you
have one consolation (a very great one) which I have not:—That your
afflictions, whether respecting your more or your less deserving child,
rise not from any fault of your own.

But what can I do for you more than pray?—Assure yourself, that in
every supplication I put up for myself, I will with equal fervour
remember both you and your son. For I am and ever will be

Your truly sympathising and dutiful CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LXV

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [SUPERSCRIBED FOR MRS. RACHEL
CLARK, &c.] WEDNESDAY, JULY 5.

MY DEAR CLARISSA,

I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected.

From my mother!

She had for some time seen me uneasy and grieving; and justly supposed
it was about you: and this morning dropt a hint, which made me
conjecture that she must have heard something of you more than I knew.
And when she found that this added to my uneasiness, she owned she had
a letter in her hands of your’s, dated the 29th of June, directed for
me.

You may guess, that this occasioned a little warmth, that could not be
wished for by either.

[It is surprising, my dear, mighty surprising! that knowing the
prohibition I lay under of corresponding with you, you could send a
letter for me to our own house: since it must be fifty to one that it
would fall into my mother’s hands, as you find it did.]

In short, she resented that I should disobey her: I was as much
concerned that she should open and withhold from me my letters: and at
last she was pleased to compromise the matter with me by giving up the
letter, and permitting me to write to you once or twice: she to see the
contents of what I wrote. For, besides the value she has for you, she
could not but have greater curiosity to know the occasion of so sad a
situation as your melancholy letter shows you to be in.

[But I shall get her to be satisfied with hearing me read what I write;
putting in between hooks, { }, what I intend not to read to her.]

Need I to remind you, Miss Clarissa Harlowe, of three letters I wrote
to you, to none of which I had any answer; except to the first, and
that of a few lines only, promising a letter at large, though you were
well enough, the day after you received my second, to go joyfully back
again with him to the vile house? But more of these by-and-by. I must
hasten to take notice of your letter of Wednesday last week; which you
could contrive should fall into my mother’s hands.

Let me tell you, that that letter has almost broken my heart. Good
God!—What have you brought yourself to, Miss Clarissa Harlowe?—Could I
have believed, that after you had escaped from the miscreant, (with
such mighty pains and earnestness escaped,) and after such an attempt
as he had made, you would have been prevailed upon not only to forgive
him, but (without being married too) to return with him to that horrid
house!—A house I had given you such an account of!—Surprising!——What an
intoxicating thing is this love?—I always feared, that you, even you,
were not proof against its inconsistent effects.

You your best self have not escaped!—Indeed I see not how you could
expect to escape.

What a tale have you to unfold!—You need not unfold it, my dear: I
would have engaged to prognosticate all that has happened, had you but
told me that you would once more have put yourself in his power, after
you had taken such pains to get out of it.

Your peace is destroyed!—I wonder not at it: since now you must
reproach yourself for a credulity so ill-placed.

Your intellect is touched!—I am sure my heart bleeds for you! But,
excuse me, my dear, I doubt your intellect was touched before you left
Hampstead: or you would never have let him find you out there; or, when
he did, suffer him to prevail upon you to return to the horrid brothel.

I tell you, I sent you three letters: The first of which, dated the 7th
and 8th of June* (for it was written at twice) came safely to your
hands, as you sent me word by a few lines dated the 9th: had it not, I
should have doubted my own safety; since in it I give you such an
account of the abominable house, and threw such cautions in your way,
in relation to that Tomlinson, as the more surprised me that you could
think of going back to it again, after you had escaped from it, and
from Lovelace.—O my dear—but nothing now will I ever wonder at!

* See Vol. V. Letter XX.

The second, dated June 10,* was given into your own hand at Hampstead,
on Sunday the 11th, as you was lying upon a couch, in a strange way,
according to my messenger’s account of you, bloated, and
flush-coloured; I don’t know how.

* See Letter VII. of this volume.

The third was dated the 20th of June.* Having not heard one word from
you since the promising billet of the 9th, I own I did not spare you in
it. I ventured it by the usual conveyance, by that Wilson’s, having no
other: so cannot be sure you received it. Indeed I rather think you
might not; because in your’s, which fell into my mother’s hands, you
make no mention of it: and if you had had it, I believe it would have
touched you too much to have been passed by unnoticed.

* See Letter XXX. of this volume.

You have heard, that I have been ill, you say. I had a cold, indeed;
but it was so slight a one that it confined me not an hour. But I doubt
not that strange things you have heard, and been told, to induce you to
take the step you took. And, till you did take that step (the going
back with this villain, I mean,) I knew not a more pitiable case than
your’s: since every body must have excused you before, who knew how you
were used at home, and was acquainted with your prudence and vigilance.
But, alas! my dear, we see that the wisest people are not to be
depended upon, when love, like an _ignis fatuus_, holds up its
misleading lights before their eyes.

My mother tells me, she sent you an answer, desiring you not to write
to me, because it would grieve me. To be sure I am grieved; exceedingly
grieved; and, disappointed too, you must permit me to say. For I had
always thought that there never was such a woman, at your years, in the
world.

But I remember once an argument you held, on occasion of a censure
passed in company upon an excellent preacher, who was not a very
excellent liver: preaching and practising, you said, required very
different talents:* which, when united in the same person, made the man
a saint; as wit and judgment, going together, constituted a genius.

* See Vol. II. Letter IV.

You made it out, I remember, very prettily: but you never made it out,
excuse me, my dear, more convincingly, than by that part of your late
conduct, which I complain of.

My love for you, and my concern for your honour, may possibly have made
me a little of the severest. If you think so, place it to its proper
account; to that love, and to that concern: which will but do justice
to

Your afflicted and faithful A.H.

P.S. My mother would not be satisfied without reading my letter
herself; and that before I had fixed all the proposed hooks. She knows,
by this means, and has excused, our former correspondence.

She indeed suspected it before: and so she very well might; knowing my
love of you.

She has so much real concern for your misfortunes, that, thinking it
will be a consolation to you, and that it will oblige me, she consents
that you shall write to me the particulars at large of your sad story.
But it is on condition that I show her all that has passed between us,
relating to yourself and the vilest of men. I have the more cheerfully
complied, as the communication cannot be to your disadvantage.

You may therefore write freely, and direct to our own house.

My mother promises to show me the copy of her letter to you, and your
reply to it; which latter she has but just told me of. She already
apologizes for the severity of her’s: and thinks the sight of your
reply will affect me too much. But, having her promise, I will not
dispense with it.

I doubt her’s is severe enough. So I fear you will think mine: but you
have taught me never to spare the fault for the friend’s sake; and that
a great error ought rather to be the more inexcusable in the person we
value, than in one we are indifferent to; because it is a reflection
upon our choice of that person, and tends to a breach of the love of
mind, and to expose us to the world for our partiality. To the love of
mind, I repeat; since it is impossible but the errors of the dearest
friend must weaken our inward opinion of that friend; and thereby lay a
foundation for future distance, and perhaps disgust.

God grant that you may be able to clear your conduct after you had
escaped from Hampstead; as all before that time was noble, generous,
and prudent; the man a devil and you a saint!——Yet I hope you can; and
therefore expect it from you.

I send by a particular hand. He will call for your answer at your own
appointment.

I am afraid this horrid wretch will trace out by the post-offices where
you are, if not careful.

To have money, and will, and head, to be a villain, is too much for the
rest of the world, when they meet in one man.

 LETTER LXVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE THURSDAY, JULY 6.

Few young persons have been able to give more convincing proofs than
myself how little true happiness lies in the enjoyment of our own
wishes.

To produce one instance only of the truth of this observation; what
would I have given for weeks past, for the favour of a letter from my
dear Miss Howe, in whose friendship I placed all my remaining comfort!
Little did I think, that the next letter she would honour me with,
should be in such a style, as should make me look more than once at the
subscription, that I might be sure (the name not being written at
length) that it was not signed by another A.H. For surely, thought I,
this is my sister Arabella’s style: surely Miss Howe (blame me as she
pleases in other points) could never repeat so sharply upon her friend,
words written in the bitterness of spirit, and in the disorder of head;
nor remind her, with asperity, and with mingled strokes of wit, of an
argument held in the gaiety of a heart elated with prosperous fortunes,
(as mine then was,) and very little apprehensive of the severe turn
that argument would one day take against herself.

But what have I, sink in my fortunes; my character forfeited; my honour
lost, [while I know it, I care not who knows it;] destitute of friends,
and even of hope; what have I to do to show a spirit of repining and
expostulation to a dear friend, because she is not more kind than a
sister?——

You have till now, my dear, treated me with great indulgence. If it was
with greater than I had deserved, I may be to blame to have built upon
it, on the consciousness that I deserve it now as much as ever. But I
find, by the rising bitterness which will mingle with the gall in my
ink, that I am not yet subdued enough to my condition.—I lay down my
pen for one moment.

Pardon me, my Miss Howe. I have recollected myself: and will endeavour
to give a particular answer to your letter; although it will take me up
too much time to think of sending it by your messenger to-morrow: he
can put off his journey, he says, till Saturday. I will endeavour to
have the whole narrative ready for you by Saturday.

But how to defend myself in every thing that has happened, I cannot
tell: since in some part of the time, in which my conduct appears to
have been censurable, I was not myself; and to this hour know not all
the methods taken to deceive and ruin me.

You tell me, that in your first letter you gave me such an account of
the vile house I was in, and such cautions about that Tomlinson, as
made you wonder how I could think of going back.

Alas, my dear! I was tricked, most vilely tricked back, as you shall
hear in its place.

Without knowing the house was so very vile a house from your intended
information, I disliked the people too much, ever voluntarily to have
returned to it. But had you really written such cautions about
Tomlinson, and the house, as you seem to have purposed to do, they
must, had they come in time, have been of infinite service to me. But
not one word of either, whatever was your intention, did you mention to
me, in that first of the three letters you so warmly TELL me you did
send me. I will enclose it to convince you.*

* The letter she encloses was Mr. Lovelace’s forged one. See Vol. V.
Letter XXX.

But your account of your messenger’s delivering to me your second
letter, and the description he gives of me, as lying upon a couch, in a
strange way, bloated, and flush-coloured; you don’t know how,
absolutely puzzles and confounds me.

Lord have mercy upon the poor Clarissa Harlowe! What can this mean!—Who
was the messenger you sent? Was he one of Lovelace’s creatures
too!—Could nobody come near me but that man’s confederates, either
setting out so, or made so? I know not what to make of any one syllable
of this! Indeed I don’t.

Let me see. You say, this was before I went from Hampstead! My
intellects had not then been touched!—nor had I ever been surprised by
wine, [strange if I had!]: How then could I be found in such a strange
way, bloated and flush-coloured; you don’t know how!—Yet what a vile,
what a hateful figure has your messenger represented me to have made!

But indeed I know nothing of any messenger from you.

Believing myself secure at Hampstead, I staid longer there than I would
have done, in hopes of the letter promised me in your short one of the
9th, brought me by my own messenger, in which you undertake to send for
and engage Mrs. Townsend in my favour.*

* See Vol. V. Letter XXIX.

I wondered I had not heard from you: and was told you were sick; and,
at another time, that your mother and you had had words on my account,
and that you had refused to admit Mr. Hickman’s visits upon it: so that
I supposed, at one time, that you were not able to write; at another,
that your mother’s prohibition had its due force with you. But now I
have no doubt that the wicked man must have intercepted your letter;
and I wish he found not means to corrupt your messenger to tell you so
strange a story.

It was on Sunday, June 11, you say, that the man gave it me. I was at
church twice that day with Mrs. Moore. Mr. Lovelace was at her house
the while, where he boarded, and wanted to have lodged; but I would not
permit that, though I could not help the other. In one of these spaces
it must be that he had time to work upon the man. You’ll easily, my
dear, find that out, by inquiring the time of his arrival at Mrs.
Moore’s and other circumstances of the strange way he pretended to see
me in, on a couch, and the rest.

Had any body seen me afterwards, when I was betrayed back to the vile
house, struggling under the operation of wicked potions, and robbed
indeed of my intellects (for this, as you shall hear, was my dreadful
case,) I might then, perhaps, have appeared bloated and flush-coloured,
and I know not how myself. But were you to see your poor Clarissa, now
(or even to have seen her at Hampstead before she suffered the vilest
of all outrages,) you would not think her bloated or flush-coloured:
indeed you would not.

In a word, it could not be me your messenger saw; nor (if any body) who
it was can I divine.

I will now, as briefly as the subject will permit, enter into the
darker part of my sad story: and yet I must be somewhat circumstantial,
that you may not think me capable of reserve or palliation. The latter
I am not conscious that I need. I should be utterly inexcusable were I
guilty of the former to you. And yet, if you know how my heart sinks
under the thoughts of a recollection so painful, you would pity me.

As I shall not be able, perhaps, to conclude what I have to write in
even two or three letters, I will begin a new one with my story; and
send the whole of it together, although written at different periods,
as I am able.

Allow me a little pause, my dear, at this place; and to subscribe
myself

Your ever affectionate and obliged, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LXVII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE [REFERRED TO IN LETTER XII.]
THURSDAY NIGHT.

He had found me out at Hampstead: strangely found me out; for I am
still at a loss to know by what means.

I was loth, in my billet of the 6th,* to tell you so, for fear of
giving you apprehensions for me; and besides, I hoped then to have a
shorter and happier issue to account to you for, through your
assistance, than I met with.

* See Vol. V. Letter XXXI.

[She then gives a narrative of all that passed at Hampstead between
herself, Mr. Lovelace, Capt. Tomlinson, and the women there, to the
same effect with that so amply given by Mr. Lovelace.]

Mr. Lovelace, finding all he could say, and all Captain Tomlinson could
urge, ineffectual, to prevail upon me to forgive an outrage so
flagrantly premeditated; rested all his hopes on a visit which was to
be paid me by Lady Betty Lawrance and Miss Montague.

In my uncertain situation, my prospects all so dark, I knew not to whom
I might be obliged to have recourse in the last resort: and as those
ladies had the best of characters, insomuch that I had reason to regret
that I had not from the first thrown myself upon their protection,
(when I had forfeited that of my own friends,) I thought I would not
shun an interview with them, though I was too indifferent to their
kinsman to seek it, as I doubted not that one end of their visit would
be to reconcile me to him.

On Monday, the 12th of June, these pretended ladies came to Hampstead;
and I was presented to them, and they to me by their kinsman.

They were richly dressed, and stuck out with jewels; the pretended Lady
Betty’s were particularly very fine.

They came in a coach-and-four, hired, as was confessed, while their own
was repairing in town: a pretence made, I now perceive, that I should
not guess at the imposture by the want of the real lady’s arms upon it.
Lady Betty was attended by her woman, who she called Morrison; a modest
country-looking person.

I had heard, that Lady Betty was a fine woman, and that Miss Montague
was a beautiful young lady, genteel, and graceful, and full of
vivacity.—Such were these impostors: and having never seen either of
them, I had not the least suspicion, that they were not the ladies they
personated; and being put a little out of countenance by the richness
of their dresses, I could not help, (fool that I was!) to apologize for
my own.

The pretended Lady Betty then told me, that her nephew had acquainted
them with the situation of affairs between us. And although she could
not but say, that she was very glad that she had not put such a slight
upon his Lordship and them, as report had given them cause to
apprehend, (the reasons for which report, however, she must have
approved of;) yet it had been matter of great concern to her, and to
her niece Montague, and would to the whole family, to find so great a
misunderstanding subsisting between us, as, if not made up, might
distance all their hopes.

She could easily tell who was in fault, she said. And gave him a look
both of anger and disdain; asking him, How it was possible for him to
give an offence of such a nature to so charming a lady, [so she called
me,] as should occasion a resentment so strong?

He pretended to be awed into shame and silence.

My dearest niece, said she, and took my hand, (I must call you niece,
as well from love, as to humour your uncle’s laudable expedient,)
permit me to be, not an advocate, but a mediatrix for him; and not for
his sake, so much as for my own, my Charlotte’s, and all our family’s.
The indignity he has offered to you, may be of too tender a nature to
be inquired into. But as he declares, that it was not a premeditated
offence; whether, my dear, [for I was going to rise upon it in my
temper,] it were or not; and as he declares his sorrows for it, (and
never did creature express a deeper sorrow for any offence than he);
and as it is a repairable one; let us, for this one time, forgive him;
and thereby lay an obligation upon this man of errors—Let US, I say, my
dear: for, Sir, [turning to him,] an offence against such a peerless
lady as this, must be an offence against me, against your cousin here,
and against all the virtuous of our sex.

See, my dear, what a creature he had picked out! Could you have thought
there was a woman in the world who could thus express herself, and yet
be vile? But she had her principal instructions from him, and those
written down too, as I have reason to think: for I have recollected
since, that I once saw this Lady Betty, (who often rose from her seat,
and took a turn to the other end of the room with such an emotion, as
if the joy of her heart would not let her sit still) take out a paper
from her stays, and look into it, and put it there again. She might
oftener, and I not observe it; for I little thought that there could be
such impostors in the world.

I could not forbear paying great attention to what she said. I found my
tears ready to start; I drew out my handkerchief, and was silent. I had
not been so indulgently treated a great while by a person of character
and distinction, [such I thought her;] and durst not trust to the
accent of my voice.

The pretended Miss Montague joined in on this occasion: and drawing her
chair close to me, took my other hand, and besought me to forgive her
cousin; and consent to rank myself as one of the principals of a family
that had long, very long, coveted the honour of my alliance.

I am ashamed to repeat to you, my dear, now I know what wretches they
are, the tender, the obliging, and the respectful things I said to
them.

The wretch himself then came forward. He threw himself at my feet. How
was I beset!—The women grasping, one my right hand, the other my left:
the pretended Miss Montague pressing to her lips more than once the
hand she held: the wicked man on his knees, imploring my forgiveness;
and setting before me my happy and my unhappy prospects, as I should
forgive and not forgive him. All that he thought would affect me in
former pleas, and those of Capt. Tomlinson, he repeated. He vowed, he
promised, he bespoke the pretended ladies to answer for him; and they
engaged their honours in his behalf.

Indeed, my dear, I was distressed, perfectly distressed. I was sorry
that I had given way to this visit. For I knew not how, in tenderness
to relations, (as I thought them,) so worthy, to treat so freely as he
deserved, a man nearly allied to them: so that my arguments and my
resolutions were deprived of their greatest force.

I pleaded, however, my application to you. I expected every hour, I
told them, an answer from you to a letter I had written, which would
decide my future destiny.

They offered to apply to you themselves in person, in their own behalf,
as they politely termed it. They besought me to write to you to hasten
your answer.

I said, I was sure that you would write the moment that the event of an
application to be made to a third person enabled you to write. But as
to the success of their request in behalf of their kinsman, that
depended not upon the expected answer; for that, I begged their pardon,
was out of the question. I wished him well. I wished him happy. But I
was convinced, that I neither could make him so, nor he me.

Then! how the wretch promised!—How he vowed!—How he entreated!—And how
the women pleaded!—And they engaged themselves, and the honour of their
whole family, for his just, his kind, his tender behaviour to me.

In short, my dear, I was so hard set, that I was obliged to come to a
more favourable compromise with them than I had intended. I would wait
for your answer to my letter, I said: and if that made doubtful or
difficult the change of measures I had resolved upon, and the scheme of
life I had formed, I would then consider of the matter; and, if they
would permit me, lay all before them, and take their advice upon it, in
conjunction with your’s, as if the one were my own aunt, and the other
were my own cousin.

They shed tears upon this—of joy they called them:—But since, I
believe, to their credit, bad as they are, that they were tears of
temporary remorse; for, the pretended Miss Montague turned about, and,
as I remember, said, There was no standing it.

But Mr. Lovelace was not so easily satisfied. He was fixed upon his
villanous measures perhaps; and so might not be sorry to have a
pretence against me. He bit his lip—he had been but too much used, he
said, to such indifference, such coldness, in the very midst of his
happiest prospects. I had on twenty occasions shown him, to his
infinite regret, that any favour I was to confer upon him was to be the
result of—there he stopt—and not of my choice.

This had like to have set all back again. I was exceedingly offended.
But the pretended ladies interposed. The elder severely took him to
task. He ought, she told him, to be satisfied with what I had said. She
desired no other condition. And what, Sir, said she, with an air of
authority, would you commit errors, and expect to be rewarded for them?

They then engaged me in a more agreeable conversation—the pretended
lady declared, that she, Lord M. and Lady Sarah, would directly and
personally interest themselves to bring about a general reconciliation
between the two families, and this either in open or private concert
with my uncle Harlowe, as should be thought fit. Animosities on one
side had been carried a great way, she said; and too little care had
been shown on the other to mollify or heal. My father should see that
they could treat him as a brother and a friend; and my brother and
sister should be convinced that there was no room either for the
jealousy or envy they had conceived from motives too unworthy to be
avowed.

Could I help, my dear, being pleased with them?—

Permit me here to break off. The task grows too heavy, at present, for
the heart of

Your CLARISSA HARLOWE.

 LETTER LXVIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN CONTINUATION.]

I was very ill, and obliged to lay down my pen. I thought I should have
fainted. But am better now—so will proceed.

The pretended ladies, the more we talked, the fonder they seemed to be
of me. And the Lady Betty had Mrs. Moore called up; and asked her, If
she had accommodations for her niece and self, her woman, and two men
servants, for three or four days?

Mr. Lovelace answered for her that she had.

She would not ask her dear niece Lovelace, [Permit me, my dear,
whispered she, this charming style before strangers! I will keep your
uncle’s secret,] whether she should be welcome or not to be so near
her. But for the time she should stay in these parts, she would come up
every night—What say you, niece Charlotte?

The pretended Charlotte answered, she should like to do so, of all
things.

The Lady Betty called her an obliging girl. She liked the place, she
said. Her cousin Leeson would excuse her. The air, and my company,
would do her good. She never chose to lie in the smoky town, if she
could help it. In short, my dear, said she to me, I will stay with you
till you hear from Miss Howe; and till I have your consent to go with
me to Glenham-hall. Not one moment will I be out of your company, when
I can have it. Stedman, my solicitor, as the distance from town is so
small, may attend me here for instructions. Niece Charlotte, one word
with you, child.

They retired to the further end of the room, and talked about their
night-dresses.

The Miss Charlotte said, Morrison might be dispatched for them.

True, said the other—but I have some letters in my private box, which I
must have up. And you know, Charlotte, that I trust nobody with the
keys of that.

Could not Morrison bring up the box?

No. She thought it safest where it was. She had heard of a robbery
committed but two days ago at the food of Hampstead-hill; and she
should be ruined if she lost her box.

Well, then, it was but going to town to undress, and she would leave
her jewels behind her, and return; and should be easier a great deal on
all accounts.

For my part, I wondered they came up with them. But that was to be
taken as a respect paid to me. And then they hinted at another visit of
ceremony which they had thought to make, had they not found me so
inexpressibly engaging.

They talked loud enough for me to hear them; on purpose, no doubt,
though in affected whispers; and concluded with high praises of me.

I was not fool enough to believe, or to be puffed up with their
encomiums; yet not suspecting them, I was not displeased at so
favourable a beginning of acquaintance with Ladies (whether I were to
be related to them or not) of whom I had always heard honourable
mention. And yet at the time, I thought, highly as they exalted me,
that in some respects (though I hardly know in what) they fell short of
what I expected them to be.

The grand deluder was at the farther end of the room, another way;
probably to give me an opportunity to hear these preconcerted
praises—looking into a book, which had there not been a preconcert,
would not have taken his attention for one moment. It was Taylor’s Holy
Living and Dying.

When the pretended ladies joined me, he approached me with it in his
hand—a smart book, this, my dear!—this old divine affects, I see, a
mighty flowery style of an ordinary country funeral, where, the young
women, in honour of a defunct companion, especially if she were a
virgin, or passed for such, make a flower-bed of her coffin.

And then, laying down the book, turning upon his heel, with one of his
usual airs of gaiety, And are you determined, Ladies, to take up your
lodgings with my charming creature?

Indeed they were.

Never were there more cunning, more artful impostors, than these women.
Practised creatures, to be sure: yet genteel; and they must have been
well-educated—once, perhaps, as much the delight of their parents, as I
was of mine: and who knows by what arts ruined, body and mind—O my
dear! how pregnant is this reflection!

But the man!—Never was there a man so deep. Never so consummate a
deceiver; except that detested Tomlinson; whose years and seriousness,
joined with a solidity of sense and judgment that seemed uncommon, gave
him, one would have thought, advantages in villany, the other had not
time for. Hard, very hard, that I should fall into the knowledge of two
such wretches; when two more such I hope are not to be met with in the
world!—both so determined to carry on the most barbarous and perfidious
projects against a poor young creature, who never did or wished harm to
either.

Take the following slight account of these women’s and of this man’s
behaviour to each other before me.

Mr. Lovelace carried himself to his pretended aunt with high respect,