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Horner's in the Country Wife, to bring the pretty wenches

to us.

I know thou wilt think me too ludicrous. I think myself so. It is truly, to be ingenuous, a forced put: for my passions are so wound up, that I am obliged either to laugh or cry.

What a length have I run! Indeed I hardly at this present know what to do with myself but scribble. Tired with Lord M. who, in his recovery, has played upon me the fable of the nurse, the crying child, the wolftired with my cousins Montague, though charming girls, were they not so near of kin-tired with Mowbray and Tourville, and their everlasting identity-tired with the country-tired with myself-longing for what I have not —I must go to town; and there have an interview with the charmer of my soul: for desperate diseases must have desperate remedies; and I only wait to know my doom from Miss Howe; and then, if it be rejection, I will try my fate, and receive my sentence at her feet. But I will apprise thee of it beforehand, as I told thee, that thou mayst keep thy parole with the lady in the best manner thou canst.

MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Friday, July 28. WILL now, my dearest friend, write to you all my mind, without reserve, on your resolution not to have this vilest of men. You gave me, in yours of Sunday the 23rd, reasons so worthy of the pure mind of my Clarissa, in support of this your resolution, that nothing but self-love, lest I should lose my everamiable friend, could have prevailed upon me to wish you to alter it.

Indeed, I thought it was impossible there could be (however desirable) so noble an instance given by any of

our sex, of a passion conquered, when there were so many inducements to give way to it. And, therefore, I was willing to urge you once more to overcome your just indignation, and to be prevailed upon by the solicitations of his friends, before you carried your resentments to so great a height, that it would be more difficult for you, and less to your honour, to comply, than if you had complied at first.

But now, my dear, that I see you fixed in your noble resolution; and that it is impossible for your pure mind to join itself with that of so perjured a miscreant; I congratulate you most heartily upon it; and beg your pardon for but seeming to doubt, that theory and practice were not the same thing with my beloved Clarissa.

The reasons you give for discouraging my wishes to have you near us, are so convincing, that I ought at present to acquiesce in them: but, my dear, when your mind is fully settled, as (now you are so absolutely determined in it, with regard to this wretch) I hope it will soon be, I shall expect you with us, or near us: and then you shall chalk out every path that I will set my foot in; nor will I turn aside either to the right hand or to the left.

You intimate that were I actually married, and Mr. Hickman to desire it, you would think of obliging me with a visit on the occasion; and that perhaps when with me, it would be difficult for you to remove far from me.

But let me tell you, my dear, that it is more in your power, than perhaps you think it, to hasten the day so much pressed for by my mother, as well as wished for by you-for the very day that you can assure me, that you are in a tolerable state of health, and have discharged your doctor and apothecary, at their own motions, on that account-some day in a month from that desirable news, shall be it. So, my dear, make haste and be well; and then this matter will be brought to effect in a manner

more agreeable to your Anna Howe than it otherwise ever

can.

I send this day, by a particular hand, to the Misses Montague your letter of just reprobation of the greatest profligate in the kingdom; and hope I shall not have done amiss that I transcribe some of the paragraphs of your letter of the 23rd, and send them with it, as you at first intended should be done.

On Monday we shall set out on our journey; and I hope to be back in a fortnight, and on my return will have one pull more with my mother for a London journey: and if the pretence must be the buying of clothes, the principal motive will be that of seeing once more my dear friend, while I can say, I have not finally given consent to the change of a visitor into a relation, and so can call myself my own, as well as

Your,

ANNA HOWE

D

MISS HOWE TO THE TWO MISSES MONTAGUE.

Saturday, July 29.

|EAR LADIES,—I have not been wanting to use all my interest with my beloved friend, to induce her to forgive and be reconciled to your kinsman (though he has so ill deserved it); and have even repeated my earnest advice to her on this head. This repetition, and the waiting for her answer, having taken up time, have been the cause, that I could not sooner do myself the honour of writing to you on this subject.

You will see, by the inclosed, her immoveable resolution, grounded on noble and high-souled motives, which I cannot but regret and applaud at the same time: applaud, for the justice of her determination, which will confirm all your worthy house in the opinion you had conceived of her unequalled merit; and regret, because I have

but too much reason to apprehend, as well by that, as by the report of a gentleman just come from her, that she is in such a declining way as to her health, that her thoughts are very differently employed than on a continuance here.

And now, ladies, you have before you my beloved friend's reasons for her refusal of a man unworthy of the relation he bears to so many excellent persons: and I will add (for I cannot help it) that, the merit and rank of the person considered, and the vile manner of his proceedings, there never was a greater villainy committed: and since she thinks her first and only fault cannot be expiated but by death, I pray to God daily, and will hourly from the moment I shall hear of that sad catastrophe, that He will be pleased to make him the subject of His vengeance, in some such way, as that all who know of his perfidious crime, may see the hand of Heaven in the punishment of it!

You will forgive me, ladies: I love not mine own soul better than I do Miss Clarissa Harlowe. And the distresses she has gone through; the persecutions she suffers from all her friends; the curse she lies under, for his sake, from her implacable father; her reduced health and circumstances, from high health and affluence; and that execrable arrest and confinement, which have deepened all her other calamities (and which must be laid at his door, as it was the act of his vile agents, that, whether from his immediate orders or not, naturally flowed from his preceding baseness); the sex dishonoured in the eye of the world, in the person of one of the greatest ornaments of it; the unmanly methods, whatever they were (for I know not all as yet) by which he compassed her ruin-all these considerations join to justify my warmth, and my execrations of a man, whom I think excluded by his crimes from the benefit even of Christian forgiveness -and were you to see all she writes, and to know the

admirable talents she is mistress of, you yourselves would join with me to admire her, and execrate him.

Believe me to be, with a high sense of your merits,

Dear ladies,

Your most obedient humble servant,

ANNA HOWE

MRS. NORTON TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

M

Friday, July 28.

Y DEAREST YOUNG LADY,—I have the consolation to tell you, that my son is once again in an hopeful way, as to his health. He desires his duty to you. He is very low and weak. And so am I. But this is the first time that I have been able, for several days past, to sit up to write, or I would not have been so long silent.

Your letter to your sister is received and answered. You have the answer by this time, I suppose. I wish it may be to your satisfaction: but am afraid it will not: for, by Betty Barnes, I find they were in a great ferment on receiving yours, and much divided whether it should be answered or not. They will not yet believe that you are so ill, as (to my infinite concern) I find you are. What passed between Miss Harlowe and Miss Howe, has been, as I feared it would be, an aggravation.

I showed Betty two or three passages in your letter to me; and she seemed moved, and said, she would report them favourably, and would procure me a visit from Miss Harlowe, if I would promise to show the same to her. But I have heard no more of that.

I am glad you are with such honest people; and that you have all your effects restored. How dreadfully have you been used, that one should be glad of such a poor piece of justice as that?

Your talent at moving the passions is always hinted at; and this Betty of your sister never comes near me, that she

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