a failing.

MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Wednesday Night, April 12.

HAVE your narrative, my dear.

You are the

same noble creature you ever were. Above disguise, above art, above attempting to extenuate

You lay the blame so properly and so unsparingly upon your meeting him, that nothing can be added to that subject by your worst enemies, were they to see what you have written.

I am not surprised, now I have read your narrative, that so bold, and so contriving a man-I am forced to break off

You stood it out much better and longer-Here again comes my bustling, jealous mother!

But I should think myself the unworthiest of creatures, could I be brought to slight a dear friend, and such a meritorious one, in her distress.-I would die first-And so I told my mother. And I have desired her not to watch me in my retired hours; nor to insist upon my lying with her constantly, which she now does more earnestly than ever. 'Twere better, I told her, that the Harlowe-Betty were borrowed to be set over me.

Mr. Hickman, who greatly honours you, has, unknown to me, interposed so warmly in your favour with my mother, that it makes for him no small merit with me.

I cannot, at present, write to every particular, unless I would be in set defiance.-Teaze, teaze, teaze, for ever! The same thing, though answered fifty times over, in every hour to be repeated-Lord bless me! what a life must my poor father-But let me remember to whom I am writing.

Your father is all rage and violence. He ought, I am sure, to turn his rage inward. All your family accuse you

of acting with deep art; and are put upon supposing that you are actually every hour exulting over them, with your man, in the success of it.

They all pretend now, that your trial of Wednesday was to be the last.

Advantage would indeed, my mother owns, have been taken of your yielding, if you had yielded. But had you not been to be prevailed upon, they would have given up their scheme, and taken your promise for renouncing Lovelace-Believe them who will!

They own, however, that a minister was to be present -Mr. Solmes was to be at hand-and your father was previously to try his authority over you, in order to make you sign the settlements-all of it a romantic contrivance of your wild-headed foolish brother, I make no doubt. Is it likely, that he and Bell would have given way to your restoration to favour, supposing it in their power to hinder it, on any other terms than those their hearts had been so long set upon ?

How they took your flight, when they found it out, may be better supposed than described.

Your brother, at first, ordered horses and armed men to be got ready for a pursuit. Solmes and your uncle Tony were to be of the party. But your mother and your aunt Hervey dissuaded them from it, for fear of adding evil to evil; not doubting but Lovelace had taken measures to support himself in what he had done; and especially when the servant declared, that he saw you run with him as fast as you could set foot to ground; and that there were several armed men on horseback at a small distance off.

My mother's absence was owing to her suspicion, that the Knollyses were to assist in our correspondence. She made them a visit upon it. She does everything at once. And they have promised, that no more letters shall be left there, without her knowledge.

But Mr. Hickman has engaged one Filmer, a husband

man in the lane we call Finch-lane, near us, to receive them. Thither you will be pleased to direct yours, under cover, to Mr. John Soberton; and Mr. Hickman himself will call for them there; and there shall leave mine. It goes against me too, to make him so useful to me.-He looks already so proud upon it !-I shall have him [who knows?] give himself airs.-He had best consider, that the favour he has been long aiming at, may put him into a very dangerous, a very ticklish situation. He that can oblige, may disoblige.-Happy for some people not to have it in their power to offend !

As this letter will apprise you of an alteration in the place to which you must direct your next, I send it by a friend of Mr. Hickman, who may be depended upon. He has business in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Sorlings; and he knows her. He will return to Mr. Hickman this night, and bring back any letter you shall have ready to send, or can get ready. It is moonlight. He'll not mind waiting for you. I choose not to send by any of Mr. Hickman's servants at present, however. Every hour is now, or may be, important; and may make an alteration in your resolutions necessary.

Adieu, my dear. May Heaven preserve you, and restore you with honour as unsullied as your mind, to

Your ever-affectionate

ANNA HOWE.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE.

Thursday Afternoon, April 13..

AM infinitely concerned, my ever-dear and everkind friend, that I am the sad occasion of the displeasure between your mother and you.

How many persons have I made unhappy!

I will acquaint you, as you desire, with all that passes between Mr. Lovelace and me. Hitherto I have not dis

covered anything in his behaviour that is very exceptionable. Yet I cannot say, that I think the respect he shows me, an easy, unrestrained, and natural respect, although I can hardly tell where the fault is.

Indeed, indeed, my dear, I could tear my hair, on reconsidering what you write (as to the probability that the dreaded Wednesday was more dreaded than it needed to be) to think, that I should be thus tricked by this man; and that, in all likelihood, through his vile agent Joseph Leman. So premeditated and elaborate a wickedness as it must be-Must I not, with such a man, be wanting to myself, if I were not jealous and vigilant?-Yet what a life to live for a spirit so open, and naturally so unsuspicious, as mine?

I am obliged to Mr. Hickman for the assistance he is so kindly ready to give to our correspondence. He is so little likely to make to himself an additional merit with the daughter upon it, that I shall be very sorry, if he risk anything with the mother by it.

I enclose the copy of my letter to my sister, which you are desirous to see. You will observe, that although I have not demanded my estate in form, and of my trustees, yet that I have hinted at leave to retire to it. How joyfully would I keep my word, if they would accept of the offer I renew?-It was not proper, I believe you will think, on many accounts, to own that I was carried off against my inclination. I am, my dearest friend, Your ever-obliged and affectionate

CL. HARLOWE.

TO MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE.

[Inclosed to Miss Howe in the preceding.]

MY DEAR SISTER,

St. Alban's, April 11.

I have, I confess, been guilty of an action which carries with it a rash and undutiful appearance. And I should have thought it an inexcusable one, had I been used with

less severity than I have been of late; and had I not had too great reason to apprehend, that I was to be made a sacrifice to a man I could not bear to think of. But what is done, is done-perhaps I could wish it had not; and that I had trusted to the relenting of my dear and honoured parents.-Yet this from no other motives, but those of duty to them.-To whom I am ready to return (if I may not be permitted to retire to The Grove) on conditions which I before offered to comply with.

Nor shall I be in any sort of dependence upon the person by whose means I have taken this truly reluctant step, inconsistent with any reasonable engagement I shall enter into, if I am not farther precipitated. Let me not have it to say, now at this important crisis! that I have a sister, but not a friend in that sister. My reputation, dearer to me than life (whatever you may imagine from the step I have taken), is suffering. A little lenity will, even yet, in a great measure, restore it, and make that pass for a temporary misunderstanding only, which otherwise will be a stain as durable as life, upon a creature who has already been treated with great unkindness, to use no harsher a word.

For your own sake therefore, for my brother's sake, by whom (I must say) I have been thus precipitated, and for all the family's sake, aggravate not my fault, if, on recollecting everything, you think it one; nor by widening the unhappy difference, expose a sister for ever-prays

Your affectionate

CL. HARLOWE.

I shall take it for a very great favour, to have my clothes directly sent me, together with fifty guineas, which you will find in my escritoire (of which I enclose the key); as also the divinity and miscellany classes of my little library; and, if it be thought fit, my jewels-directed for me, to be left, till called for, at Mr. Osgood's, near Soho Square.