had to hope for, was, that her father would revoke his malediction, previous to the last blessing she should then implore: for the rest, her friends would think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer: for now nothing could happen that could make her wish to live.

Mrs. Smith went down; and, soon returning, asked, if the lady and I would not dine with her that day; for it was her wedding-day. She had engaged Mrs. Lovick, she said; and should have nobody else, if we would do her that favour.

The charming creature sighed, and shook her head.-Wedding-day! repeated she.-I wish you, Mrs. Smith, many happy wedding-days!—But you will excuse me.

Mr. Smith came up with the same request. They both applied to me.

On condition the lady would, I should make no scruple; and would suspend an engagement: which I actually had.

She then desired they would all sit down. You have several times, Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith ; hinted your wishes, that I would give you some little history of myself: now, if you are at leisure, that this gentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, and can tell you if I give it justly or not, I will oblige your curiosity.

They all eagerly, the man Smith too, sat down; and she began an account of herself, which I will endeavour to repeat, as nearly in her own words as I possibly can: for I know you will think it of importance to be apprized of her manner of relating your barbarity to her, as well as what her sentiments are of it; and what room there is for the hopes your friends have in your favour from

her.

'At first when I took these lodgings, said she, I

thought of staying but a short time in them; and so, Mrs. Smith, I told you: I therefore avoided giving any other account of myself than that I was a very unhappy young creature, seduced from good friends, and escaped from very vile wretches.

This account I thought myself obliged to give, that you might the less wonder at seeing a young creature rushing through your shop, into your back apartment, all trembling and out of breath; an ordinary garb over my own; craving lodging and protection: only giving my bare word, that you should be handsomely paid: all my effects contained in a pocket handkerchief.

My sudden absence, for three days and nights together, when arrested, must still further surprise you: : and although this gentleman, who, perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story, than I do myself, has informed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unhappy, not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to suffer honest minds to be in doubt about my character.

'You must know, then, that I have been, in one instance (I had like to have said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutiful child to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call cruelty in them, is owing but to the excess of their love, and to their disappointment, having had reason to expect better from me.

I was visited (at first, with my friends' connivance) by a man of birth and fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed any man could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent at that time; and, when he returned (from an old grudge, and knowing the gentleman, it is plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved of his visits : and, having a great sway in our

family, brought other gentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) he introduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eye as disagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me to have him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against, and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies.

To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly, that, in a rash fit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention, you'll say! But I was greatly provoked: nevertheless, I repented, and resolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to me neither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter; and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly and contrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine, to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was tricked away: poorly enough tricked away, I must needs say; though others, who had been first guilty of so rash a step as the meeting of him was, might have been so deceived and surprised as well as I.

'After remaining some time at a farm-house in the country, and behaving to me all the time with. honour, he brought me to handsome lodgings in town till still better provision could be made for me. But they proved to be (as he indeed knew and designed) at a vile, a very vile creature's; though it was long before I found her to be so; for I knew nothing of the town, or its ways.

There is no repeating what followed: such unprecedented vile arts!-For I gave him no oppor tunity to take me at any disreputable advantage'

And here (half covering her sweet face, with her handkerchief put to her tearful eyes) she stopt,

Hastily, as if she would fly from the hateful remembrance, she resumed :-I made my escape afterward from the abominable house in his absence, and came to yours: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think, that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which was made, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings: for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them-[she sighed, and again wiped her charming eyes-adding in a softer, lower voice]-for being ruined.'

Indeed, madam, said I, guilty, abominably guilty, as he is in all the rest, he is innocent of this last wicked outrage.

'Well, and so I wish him to be. That evil, heavy as it was, is one of the slightest evils I have suffered. But hence you'll observe, Mrs. Lovick, (for you seemed this morning curious to know if I were not a wife) that I never was married.-You, Mr. Belford, no doubt, knew before, that I am no wife and now I never will be one. Yet, I bless God, that I am not a guilty creature!

As to my parentage, I am of no mean family; I have in my own right, by the intended favour of my-grandfather, a fortune not contemptible: independent of my father; if I had pleased; but I never will please.

My father is very rich. I went by another name when I came to you first: but that was to avoid being discovered by the perfidious man: who now engages, by this gentleman, not to molest

.me.

My real name you now know to be Harlowe : Clarissa Harlowe. I am not yet twenty years of age.

I have an excellent mother, as well as father;

a woman of family, and fine sense-worthy of a better child-they both doated upon me.

'I have two good uncles: men of great fortune; jealous of the honour of their family; which I have wounded.

'I was the joy of their hearts; and, with theirs and my father's, I had three houses to call my own; for they used to have me with them by turns, and almost kindly to quarrel for me: so that I was two months in the year with the one; two months with the other; six months at my father's: and two at the houses of others of my dear friends, who thought themselves happy in me: and whenever I was at any one's, I was crowded upon with letters by all the rest, who longed for my return to them.

In short, I was beloved by every body. The poor-I used to make glad their hearts; I never shut my hand to any distress, wherever I was-but now I am poor myself!

'So Mrs. Smith, so Mrs. Lovick, I am not married. It is but just to tell you so. And I am now, as I ought to be, in a state of humiliation and penitence for the rash step which has been followed by so much evil. God, I hope, will forgive me, as I am endeavouring to bring my mind to forgive all the world, even the man who has ungratefully, and by dreadful perjuries [poor wretch! he thought all his wickedness to be wit!] reduced to this, a young creature, who had his happiness in her view, and in her wish, even beyond this life; and who was believed to be of rank, and fortune, and expectations, considerable enough to make it the interest of any gentleman in England to be faithful to his vows to her. But I cannot expect that my parents will forgive me: my refuge must be death; the most painful kind of which I would suffer, ra