mitted to go home with me, or with your uncle Antony, (with which of us was not agreed upon, because they hoped you might be persuaded,) there to stay till the arrival of your cousin Morden; or till your father could have borne to see you; or till assured that the views of Lovelace were at an end.

This the intention, your father so set upon your compliance, so much in hopes that you would have yielded, that you would have been prevailed upon by methods so condescending and so gentle; no wonder that he, in particular, was like a distracted man, when he heard of your flight-of your flight so premeditated;-with your ivy summer-house dinings, your arts to blind me, and all of us!-Naughty, naughty, young creature!

I, for my part, would not believe it, when told of it. Your uncle Hervey would not believe it. We rather expected, we rather feared, a still more desperate adventure. There could be but one more desperate; and I was readier to have the cascade resorted to, than the garden backdoor. Your mother fainted away, while her heart was torn between the two apprehensions. -Your father, poor man! your father was beside himself for near an hour-What imprecations!-What dreadful imprecations!-To this day he can hardly bear your name: yet can think of nobody else. Your merits, my dear, but aggravate your fault. Something of fresh aggravation every hour.-How can any favour be expected?

I am sorry for it; but am afraid nothing you ask will be complied with.

Why mention you, my dear, the saving you from mortifications, who have gone off with a man? What a poor pride is it to stand upon anything else!

I dare not open my lips in your favour. Nobody dare. Your letter must stand by itself. This has caused me to send it to Harlowe Place. Expect therefore great severity. May you be enabled to support the lot you have drawn! O my dear! how unhappy have you made every body! Can you expect to be happy? Your father wishes you had never been born. Your poor mother-but why should I afflict you? There is now no help!-You must be changed indeed, if you are not very unhappy yourself in the reflections your thoughtful mind must suggest to

you.

You must now make the best of your lot. Yet not married, it seems!

It is in your power, you say, to perform whatever you shall undertake to do. You may deceive yourself: you hope that your reputation and the favour of your friends may be retrieved. Never, never, both, I doubt, if either. Every offended person (and that is all who loved you,

and are related to you) must join to restore you: when can these be of one mind in a case so notoriously wrong?

It would be very grievous, you say, to be precipitated upon measures that may make the desirable reconciliation more difficult. Is it now, my dear, a time for you to be afraid of being precipitated? At present, if ever, there can be no thought of reconciliation. The upshot of your precipitation must first be seen. There may be murder yet, as far as we know. Will the man you are with part willingly with you? If not, what may be the consequence? If he will Lord bless me! what shall we think of his reasons for it?—I will fly this thought. I know your purity-But, my dear, are you not out of all protection?-Are you not unmarried?-Have you not (making your daily prayers useless) thrown yourself into temptation? And is not the man the most wicked of plotters?

You have hitherto, you say, (and I think, my dear, with an air unbecoming your declared penitence,) no fault to find with the behaviour of a man from whom every evil was apprehended: like Cæsar to the Roman augur, which I heard you tell of, who had bid him beware of the Ides of March:-The Ides of March, said Cæsar, seeing the augur among the crowd, as he marched in state to the senate-house, from which he never was to return alive, the Ides of March are come. -But they are not past, the augur replied. Make the application, my dear: may you be able to make this reflection upon his good behaviour to the last of your knowledge of him! May he behave himself better to you, than he ever did to any body else over whom he had power! Amen!

No answer, I beseech you. I hope your messenger will not tell anybody that I have written to you. And I dare say you will not shew what I have written to Mr Lovelace for I have written with the less reserve, depending upon your prudence.

You have my prayers.

My Dolly knows not that I write: nobody does ;* not even Mr Hervey.

Dolly would have several times written: but having defended your fault with heat, and with a partiality that alarmed us, (such a fall as yours, my dear, must be alarming to all parents,) she has been forbidden, on pain of losing our favour for ever; and this at your family's request, as well as by her father's commands.

You have the poor girl's hourly prayers, I will, however, tell you, though she knows not what I do, as well as those of

Your truly afflicted aunt,
D. HERVEY.

Friday, April 21.

LETTER LII.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE.

[With the preceding.]

Saturday Morning, April 22. I HAVE just now received the enclosed from my aunt Hervey. Be pleased, my dear, to keep her secret of having written to the unhappy wretch, her niece.

I may go to London, I see, or where I will.

No matter what becomes of me.

I was the willinger to suspend my journey thither till I heard from Harlowe Place. I thought, if I could be encouraged to hope for a reconciliation, I would let this man see, that he should not have me in his power, but upon my own terms, if at all.

But I find I must be his, whether I will or not; and perhaps through still greater mortifications than those great ones which I have already met with-And must I be so absolutely thrown upon a man, with whom I am not at all satisfied!

My letter is sent, you see, to Harlowe Place. My heart aches for the reception it may meet with there.

One comfort only arises to me from its being sent; that my aunt will clear herself, by the communication, from the supposition of having corresponded with the poor creature whom they have all determined to reprobate. It is no small part of my misfortune that I have weakened the confidence one dear friend has in another, and made one look cool upon another. My poor cousin Dolly, you see, has reason to regret on this account, as well as my aunt. Miss Howe, my dear Miss Howe, is but too sensible of the effects of my fault, having had more words with her mother on my account, than ever she had on any other. Yet the man who has drawn me into all this evil I must be thrown upon!-Much did I consider, much did I apprehend, before my fault, supposing I were to be guilty of it: but I saw it not in all its shocking lights.

And now, to know that my father, an hour before he received the tidings of my supposed flight, owned that he loved me as his life; that he would have been all condescension; that he would-Oh! my dear, how tender, how mortifyingly tender now in him! My aunt need not have been afraid, that it should be known that she has sent me such a letter as this!-A father to kneel to his child !-There would not indeed have been any bearing of that!-What I should have done in such a case, I know not. Death would have been much more welcome to me than such a sight, on such an occasion, in behalf of a man so very, very disgustful to me !-But

I had deserved annihilation, had I suffered my father to kneel in vain.

Yet, had but the sacrifice of inclination and personal preference been all, less than KNEELING should have done. My duty should have been the conqueror of my inclination. But an aversion-an aversion so very sincere!--The triumph of a cruel and ambitious brother, ever so uncontroulable, joined with the insults of an envious sister, bringing wills to theirs, which otherwise would have been favourable to me: the marriage-duties, so absolutely indispensable, so solemnly to be engaged for: the marriage-intimacies (permit me to say to you, my friend, what the purest, although with apprehension, must think of) so very intimate: myself one who never looked upon any duty, much less a voluntary-vowed one, with indifference; could it have been honest in me to have given my hand to an odious hand, and to have consented to such a more than reluctant, such an immiscible union, if I may so call it ?-For life too!-Did not Í think more and deeper than most young creatures think; did I not weigh, did I not reflect, I might perhaps have been less obstinate.-Delicacy, (may I presume to call it?) thinking, weighing, reflection, are not blessings (I have not found them such) in the degree I have them. I wish I had been able, in some very nice cases, to have known what indifference was; yet not to have my ignorance imputable to me as a fault. Oh! my dear, the finer sensibilities, if I may suppose mine to be such, make not happy!

What a method had my friends intended to take with me? This, I dare say, was a method chalked out by my brother. He, I suppose, was to have presented me to all my assembled friends, as the daughter capable of preferring her own will to the wills of them all. It would have been a sore trial, no doubt. Would to Heaven, however, I had stood it—let the issue have been what it would, would to Heaven I had stood it!

There may be murder, my aunt says. This looks as if she knew of Singleton's rash plot. Such an upshot, as she calls it, of this unhappy affair, Heaven avert!

She flies a thought, that I can less dwell upon-a cruel thought-but she has a poor opinion of the purity she compliments me with, if she thinks that I am not, by God's grace, above temptation from this sex. Although I never saw a man, whose person I could like, before this man; yet his faulty character allowed me but little merit from the indifference I pretended to on his account. But, now I see him in nearer lights, I like him less than ever. Unpolite, cruel, insolent!-Unwise! A trifler with his own happiness; the destroyer of mine!-His last treatment-my fate too visibly in his power-master of his own wishes, [shame to say it, if he knew what to wish for.-Indeed I never liked him so little as now. Upon my word, I think I could

hate him, (if I do not already hate him,) sooner than any man I ever thought tolerably of-a good reason why: because I have been more disappointed in my expectations of him : although they never were so high, as to have made him my choice in preference to the single life, had that been permitted me. Still, if the giving him up for ever will make my path to reconciliation easy, and if they will signify as much to me, they shall see that I never will be his: for I have the vanity to think my soul his soul's superior.

You will say I rave: forbidden to write to my aunt, and taught to despair of reconciliation, you, my dear, must be troubled with my passionate resentments. What a wretch was I to give him a meeting, since by that I put it out of my power to meet my assembled friends!-All would now, if I had met them, have been over; and who can tell when my present distresses will?-Rid of both men, I had been now perhaps at my aunt Hervey's or at my uncle Antony's; wishing for my cousin Morden's arrival, who might have accommodated all.

I intended, indeed, to have stood it: And, if I had, how know I by whose name I might now have been called? For how should I have resisted a condescending, a kneeling father, had he been able to have kept his temper with me? Yet my aunt says he would have relented, if I had not. Perhaps he would have been moved by my humility, before he could have shewn such undue condescension. Such temper as he would have received me with might have been improved upon in my favour. And that he had designed ultimately to relent, how it clears my friends (at least to themselves) and condemns me? O why were my aunt's hints (I remember them now) so very dark ?-Yet I intended to have returned after the interview; and then perhaps she would have explained herself.-O this artful, this designing Lovelace !-yet I must repeat, that most ought I to blame myself for meeting him.

But far, far be banished from me fruitless recrimination! Far banished, because fruitless! Let me wrap myself about in the mantle of my own integrity, and take comfort in my unfaulty intention! Since it is now too late to look back, let me recollect all my fortitude, and endeavour to stand those shafts of angry Providence, which it will not permit me to shun! That, whatever the trials may be which I am destined to undergo, I may not behave unworthily in them, and may come out amended by them.

Join with me in this prayer, my beloved friend; for your own honour's sake, as well as for love's sake, join with me in it; lest a deviation on my side should, with the censorious, cast a shade upon a friendship which has no levity in it; and the basis of which is improvement, as well in the greater as lesser duties.

CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER LIII.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE.

Saturday Afternoon, April 22.

O MY best, my only friend! Now, indeed, is my heart broken! It has received a blow it never will recover. Think not of corresponding with a wretch who now seems absolutely devoted. How can it be otherwise, if a parent's curses have the weight I always attributed to them, and have heard so many instances in confirmation of that weight!-Yes, my dear Miss Howe, superadded to all my afflictions, I have the consequences of a father's curse to struggle with! How shall I support this reflection!-My past and my present situation so much authorizing my apprehensions!

I have, at last, a letter from my unrelenting sister. Would to Heaven I had not provoked it by my second letter to my aunt Hervey! It lay ready for me, it seems. The thunder slept, till I awakened it. I enclose the letter itself. Transcribe it I cannot. There is no bearing the thoughts of it: for [shocking reflection! the curse extends to the life beyond this.

I am in the depth of vapourish despondency. I can only repeat-shun, fly, correspond not with a wretch so devoted as CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER LIV.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

To be left at Mr Osgood's, near Soho-square.

Friday, April 21.

It was expected you would send again to me, or to my aunt Hervey. The enclosed has lain ready for you, therefore, by direction. You will have no answer from anybody, write to whom you will, and as often as you will, and what you will.

It was designed to bring you back by proper authority, or to send you whither the disgraces you have brought upon us all should be in the likeliest way, after a while, to be forgotten. But I believe that design is over, so you may range securely-nobody will think it worth while to give themselves any trouble about you. Yet my mother has obtained leave to send you your clothes of all sorts; but your clothes only. This is a favour you will see by the within letter not designed you, and now not granted for your sake, but because my poor mother cannot bear in her sight anything you used to wear. Read the enclosed, and tremble.

ARABELLA HARLOWE.

Your clothes will not be sent you. You seem, by leaving them behind you, to have been secure of them whenever you demanded them, but perhaps you could think of nothing but meeting your fellow;-nothing but how to get off your forward self! For everything seems to have been forgotten but what was to contribute to your wicked flight. Yet you judged right, perhaps, that you would have been detected, had you endeavoured to get away your clothes. Cunning creature! not to make one step that we could guess at you by! Cunning to effect your own ruin, and the disgrace of all the family! But does the wretch put you upon writing for your things, for fear you should be too expensive to him? That's it, I suppose.

Was there ever a giddier creature? Yet this is the celebrated, the blazing Clarissa-Clarissa, what? Harlowe, no doubt! And Harlowe it will be, to the disgrace of us all!

Your drawings and your pieces are all taken down, as is also your own whole-length picture, in the Vandyke taste, from your late parlour; they are taken down and thrown into your closet, which will be nailed up, as if it were not a part of the house, there to perish together; for who can bear to see them? Yet, how did they use to be shewn to everybody; the former for the magnifying of your dainty finger-works, the latter for the imputed dignity (dignity now in the dust!) of your boasted figure; and this by those fond parents from whom you have run away with so much, yet with so little contrivance!

My brother vows revenge upon your libertine for the family's sake he vows it-not for yours! For he will treat you, he declares, like a common creature, if ever he sees you, and doubts not that this will be your fate.

My uncle Harlowe renounces you for ever. So does my uncle Antony.

So does my aunt Hervey.

So do I, base unworthy creature! the disgrace of a good family, and the property of an infamous rake, as questionless you will soon find yourself, if you are not already.

Your books, since they have not taught you what belongs to your family, to your sex, and to your education, will not be sent you; your money neither; nor yet the jewels so undeservedly made yours. For it is wished you may be seen a beggar along London streets.

If all this is heavy, lay your hand to your heart, and ask yourself, Why you have deserved it?

Every man whom your pride taught you to reject with scorn, (Mr Solmes excepted, who, however, has reason to rejoice that he missed you,) triumphs in your shameful elopement, and now knows how to account for his being refused.

Your worthy Norton is ashamed of you, and mingles her tears with your mother's, both reproaching themselves for their shares in you, and in so fruitless an education. Everybody, in short, is ashamed of you, but none more than ARABELLA HARLOWE,

LETTER LV.

MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Tuesday, April 25.

BE comforted; be not dejected; do not despond, my dearest and best-beloved friend. God Almighty is just and gracious, and gives not his assent to rash and inhuman curses. Can you think that Heaven will seal to the black passions of its depraved creatures? If it did, malice, envy, and revenge would triumph; and the best of the human race, blasted by the malignity of the worst, would be miserable in both worlds.

This outrageousness shews only what manner of spirit they are of, and how much their sordid views exceed their parental love. 'Tis all owing to rage and disappointment-disappointment in designs proper to be frustrated.

If you consider this malediction as it ought to be considered, a person of your piety must and will rather pity and pray for your rash father, than terrify yourself on the occasion. None but God can curse; parents or others, whoever they be, can only pray to Him to curse; and such prayers can have no weight with a just and allperfect Being, the motives to which are unreasonable, and the end proposed by them cruel.

Has not God commanded us to bless, and curse not? Pray for your father, then, I repeat, that he incur not the malediction he has announced on you; since he has broken, as you see, a command truly divine, while you, by obeying that other precept which enjoins us to pray for them that persecute and curse us, will turn the curse into a blessing.

My mother blames them for this wicked letter of your sister, and she pities you, and, of her own accord, wished me to write to comfort you, for this once; for she says it is pity your heart,

which was so noble, (and when the sense of your fault, and the weight of a parent's curse are so strong upon you,) should be quite broken. Lord bless me, how your aunt writes! Can there be two rights and two wrongs in palpable cases! But, my dear, she must be wrong; so. they all have been, justify themselves now as they will. They can only justify themselves to themselves from selfish principles, resolving to acquit, not fairly to try themselves. Did your unkind aunt, in all the tedious progress of your contentions with them, give you the least hope of their relenting? Her dark hints now I recollect as well as you. But why was anything good or hopeful to be darkly hinted? How easy was it for her, who pretended always to love you; for her who can give such flowing licence to her pen for your hurt, to have given you one word, one line (in confidence) of their pretended change of measures!

But do not mind their after-pretences, my dear; all of them serve but for tacit confessions of their vile usage of you. I will keep your aunt's secret, never fear. I would not, on any consideration, that my mother should see her letter.

You will now see that you have nothing left but to overcome all scrupulousness, and marry as soon as you have an opportunity. Determine so to do, my dear.

I will give you a motive for it, regarding myself. For this I have resolved, and this I have vowed, [O friend, the best beloved of my heart, be not angry with me for it!" That so long as your happiness is in suspense, I will never think of marrying." In justice to the man I shall have, I have vowed this; for, my dear, must I not be miserable, if you are so? And what an unworthy wife must I be to any man who cannot have interest enough in my heart to make his obligingness a balance for an affliction he has not caused?

I would shew Lovelace your sister's abominable letter, were it to me. I enclose it. It shall not have a place in this house. This will enter him, of course, into the subject which you now ought to have most in view. Let him see what you suffer for him. He cannot prove base to such an excellence. I should never enjoy my head or my senses, should this man prove a villain to you! With a merit so exalted, you may have punishment more than enough for your involuntary fault in that husband.

I would not have you be too sure that their project to seize you is over. The words intimating that it is over, in the letter of that abominable Arabella, seem calculated to give you security. She only says she believes that design is over; and I do not yet find, from Miss Lloyd, that it is disavowed. So it will be best when you are in London to be private, and, for fear of the worst, to let every direction be to a third place;

for I would not, for the world, have you fall into the hands of such flaming and malevolent spirits by surprise.

I will myself be content to direct to you at some third place, and I shall then be able to aver to my mother, or to any other, if occasion be, that I know not where you are.

Besides, this measure will make you less apprehensive of the consequences of their violence, should they resolve to attempt to carry you off in spite of Lovelace.

I would have you direct to Mr Hickman even your answer to this. I have a reason for it. Besides, my mother, notwithstanding this particular indulgence, is very positive. They have prevailed upon her, I know, to give her word to this purpose-Spiteful, poor wretches! How I hate in particular your foolish uncle Antony.

I would not have your thoughts dwell on the contents of your sister's shocking letter, but pursue other subjects-the subjects before you. And let me know your progress with Lovelace, and what he says to this diabolical curse. far you may enter into this hateful subject. I expect that this will aptly introduce the grand topic between you, without needing a mediator.

So

Come, my dear, when things are at worst they will mend. Good often comes when evil is expected. But if you despond, there can be no hopes of cure. Don't let them break your heart, for that is plain to me is now what some people have in view to do.

How poor to withhold from you your books, your jewels, and your money! As money is all you can at present want, since they will vouchsafe to send your clothes, I send fifty guineas by the bearer, enclosed in single papers in my Norris's Miscellanies. I charge you, as you love me, return them not.

I have more at your service. So, if you like not your lodgings, or his behaviour, when you get to town, leave both them and him out of hand.

I would advise you to write to Mr Morden without delay; if he intends for England, it may hasten him; and you will do very well till he can come. But, surely, Lovelace will be infatuated if he secure not his happiness by your consent, before that of Mr Morden's is made needful on his arrival.

Once more, my dear, let me beg of you to be comforted. Manage with your usual prudence the stake before you, and all will still be happy. Suppose yourself to be me, and me to be you, you may-for your distress is mine, and then you will add full day to these but glimmering lights which are held out to you by

Your ever affectionate and faithful
ANNA HOWE.

I hurry this away by Robert. I will inquire into the truth of your aunt's pretences about