>>>      Perhaps the company he found there, may be the
          most probable way of accounting for his bearing
          with the house, and for his strange suspensions of
          marriage, when it was in his power to call such an
          angel of a woman his.—
    
     >>>      O my dear, the man is a villain!—the greatest
          of villains, in every light!—I am convinced that he
          is.—And this Doleman must be another of his
          implements!
    
     >>>      There are so many wretches who think that to
          be no sin, which is one of the greatest and most
          ungrateful of all sins,—to ruin young creatures of
          our sex who place their confidence in them; that
          the wonder is less than the shame, that people, of
          appearance at least, are found to promote the horrid
          purposes of profligates of fortune and interest!
    
     >>>      But can I think [you will ask with indignant
          astonishment] that Lovelace can have designs upon
          your honour?
    
     >>>      That such designs he has had, if he still hold
          them or not, I can have no doubt, now that I know
          the house he has brought you to, to be a vile one.
          This is a clue that has led me to account for all his
          behaviour to you ever since you have been in his
          hands.

              Allow me a brief retrospection of it all.

              We both know, that pride, revenge, and a delight
          to tread in unbeaten paths, are principal ingredients
          in the character of this finished libertine.
    
     >>>      He hates all your family—yourself excepted:
          and I have several times thought, that I have seen
     >>>  him stung and mortified that love has obliged him
          to kneel at your footstool, because you are a Har-
          lowe.  Yet is this wretch a savage in love.—Love
     >>>  that humanizes the fiercest spirits, has not been able
          to subdue his.  His pride, and the credit which a
     >>>  few plausible qualities, sprinkled among his odious
          ones, have given him, have secured him too good
          a reception from our eye-judging, our undistinguish-
          ing, our self-flattering, our too-confiding sex, to
          make assiduity and obsequiousness, and a conquest
          of his unruly passions, any part of his study.
    
     >>>      He has some reason for his animosity to all the
          men, and to one woman of your family.  He has
          always shown you, and his own family too, that he
     >>>  prefers his pride to his interest.  He is a declared
          marriage-hater; a notorious intriguer; full of his
          inventions, and glorying in them: he never could
          draw you into declarations of love; nor till your
     >>>  wise relations persecuted you as they did, to receive
          his addresses as a lover.  He knew that you pro-
          fessedly disliked him for his immoralities; he could
          not, therefore, justly blame you for the coldness
          and indifference of your behaviour to him.
    
     >>>      The prevention of mischief was your first main
          view in the correspondence he drew you into.  He
          ought not, then, to have wondered that you declared
          your preference of the single life to any matrimonial
          engagement.  He knew that this was always your
     >>>  preference; and that before he tricked you away
          so artfully.  What was his conduct to you
          afterwards, that you should of a sudden change
          it?

              Thus was your whole behaviour regular, con-
          sistent, and dutiful to those to whom by birth you
          owed duty; and neither prudish, coquettish, nor
          tyrannical to him.
    
     >>>      He had agreed to go on with you upon those
          your own terms, and to rely only on his own merits
          and future reformation for your favour.
    
     >>>      It was plain to me, indeed, to whom you com-
          municated all that you knew of your own heart,
          though not all of it that I found out, that love had
          pretty early gained footing in it.  And this you
          yourself would have discovered sooner than you
     >>>  did, had not his alarming, his unpolite, his rough
          conduct, kept it under.
    
     >>>      I knew by experience that love is a fire that is
          not to be played with without burning one's fingers:
          I knew it to be a dangerous thing for two single
          persons of different sexes to enter into familiarity
          and correspondence with each other: Since, as to
          the latter, must not a person be capable of premedi-
          tated art, who can sit down to write, and not write
          from the heart?—And a woman to write her heart
          to a man practised in deceit, or even to a man of
          some character, what advantage does it give him
          over her?
    
     >>>      As this man's vanity had made him imagine, that
          no woman could be proof against love, when his
          address was honourable; no wonder that he
          struggled, like a lion held in toils, against a passion
          that he thought not returned.  And how could
          you, at first, show a return in love, to so fierce
          a spirit, and who had seduced you away by vile
          artifices, but to the approval of those artifices.
    
     >>>      Hence, perhaps, it is not difficult to believe, that
          it became possible for such a wretch as this to give
          way to his old prejudices against marriage; and to
          that revenge which had always been a first passion
          with him.

              This is the only way, I think, to account for his
          horrid views in bringing you to a vile house.

              And now may not all the rest be naturally
          accounted for?—His delays—his teasing ways—
          his bringing you to bear with his lodging in the
          same house—his making you pass to the people of
     >>>  it as his wife, though restrictively so, yet with hope,
          no doubt, (vilest of villains as he is!) to take you
     >>>  at an advantage—his bringing you into the com-
          pany of his libertine companions—the attempt of
          imposing upon you that Miss Partington for a
          bedfellow, very probably his own invention for
          the worst of purposes—his terrifying you at many
          different times—his obtruding himself upon you
          when you went out to church; no doubt to prevent
          your finding out what the people of the house were
          —the advantages he made of your brother's foolish
          project with Singleton.

              See, my dear, how naturally all this follows from
     >>>  the discovery made by Miss Lardner.  See how
          the monster, whom I thought, and so often called,
     >>>  a fool, comes out to have been all the time one of
          the greatest villains in the world!

              But if this is so, what, [it would be asked by
          an indifferent person,] has hitherto saved you?
          Glorious creature!—What, morally speaking, but
          your watchfulness!  What but that, and the
          majesty of your virtue; the native dignity, which,
          in a situation so very difficult, (friendless, destitute,
          passing for a wife, cast into the company of crea-
          tures accustomed to betray and ruin innocent hearts,)
          has hitherto enabled you to baffle, over-awe, and
          confound, such a dangerous libertine as this; so
          habitually remorseless, as you have observed him
          to be; so very various in his temper, so inventive,
          so seconded, so supported, so instigated, too pro-
          bably, as he has been!—That native dignity, that
          heroism, I will call it, which has, on all proper
          occasions, exerted itself in its full lustre, unmingled
     >>>  with that charming obligingness and condescending
          sweetness, which is evermore the softener of that
          dignity, when your mind is free and unapprehen-
          sive!
    
     >>>      Let me stop to admire, and to bless my beloved
          friend, who, unhappily for herself, at an age so
          tender, unacquainted as she was with the world, and
          with the vile arts of libertines, having been called
          upon to sustain the hardest and most shocking trials,
          from persecuting relations on one hand, and from
          a villanous lover on the other, has been enabled to
          give such an illustrious example of fortitude and
          prudence as never woman gave before her; and
          who, as I have heretofore observed,* has made a
          far greater figure in adversity, than she possibly
          could have made, had all her shining qualities been
          exerted in their full force and power, by the con-
     >>>  tinuance of that prosperous run of fortune which
          attended her for eighteen years of life out of
          nineteen.
    

* See Vol. IV. Letters XXIV.

          ***
    
     >>>      But now, my dear, do I apprehend, that you
          are in greater danger than ever yet you have been
          in; if you are not married in a week; and yet stay
          in this abominable house.  For were you out of it,
          I own I should not be much afraid for you.

              These are my thoughts, on the most deliberate
     >>>  consideration: 'That he is now convinced, that
          he has not been able to draw you off your guard:
          that therefore, if he can obtain no new advantage
          over you as he goes along, he is resolved to do you
          all the poor justice that it is in the power of such a
          wretch as he to do you.  He is the rather induced to
          this, as he sees that all his own family have warmly
          engaged themselves in your cause: and that it is
     >>>  his highest interest to be just to you.  Then the
          horrid wretch loves you (as well he may) above all
          women.  I have no doubt of this: with such a love
     >>>  as such a wretch is capable of: with such a love as
          Herod loved his Marianne.  He is now therefore,
          very probably, at last, in earnest.'

              I took time for inquiries of different natures, as
          I knew, by the train you are in, that whatever his
          designs are, they cannot ripen either for good or
     >>>  evil till something shall result from this device
          of his about Tomlinson and your uncle.

              Device I have no doubt that it is, whatever this
          dark, this impenetrable spirit intends by it.
    
     >>>      And yet I find it to be true, that Counsellor
          Williams (whom Mr. Hickman knows to be a man
          of eminence in his profession) has actually as good
     >>>  as finished the settlements: that two draughts of
          them have been made; one avowedly to be sent to
          one Captain Tomlinson, as the clerk says:—and I
          find that a license has actually been more than once
          endeavoured to be obtained; and that difficulties
          have hitherto been made, equally to Lovelace's
     >>>  vexation and disappointment.  My mother's proctor,
          who is very intimate with the proctor applied to
          by the wretch, has come at this information in
          confidence; and hints, that, as Mr. Lovelace is a
          man of high fortunes, these difficulties will probably
          be got over.

              But here follow the causes of my apprehension of
          your danger; which I should not have had a thought
     >>>  of (since nothing very vile has yet been attempted)
          but on finding what a house you are in, and, on that
          discovery, laying together and ruminating on past
          occurrences.

              'You are obliged, from the present favourable
     >>>  appearances, to give him your company whenever
          he requests it.—You are under a necessity of for-
          getting, or seeming to forget, past disobligations;
          and to receive his addresses as those of a betrothed
          lover.—You will incur the censure of prudery and
          affectation, even perhaps in your own apprehension,
          if you keep him at that distance which has hitherto
     >>>  been your security.—His sudden (and as suddenly
          recovered) illness has given him an opportunity to
          find out that you love him.  [Alas! my dear, I
          knew you loved him!]  He is, as you relate, every
     >>>  hour more and more an encroacher upon it.  He
          has seemed to change his nature, and is all love and
     >>>  gentleness.  The wolf has put on the sheep's cloth-
          ing; yet more than once has shown his teeth, and
          his hardly-sheathed claws.  The instance you have
          given of his freedom with your person,* which you
          could not but resent; and yet, as matters are
          circumstanced between you, could not but pass
          over, when Tomlinson's letter called you into his
     >>>  company,** show the advantage he has now over
          you; and also, that if he can obtain greater, he
          will.—And for this very reason (as I apprehend) it
     >>>  is, that Tomlinson is introduced; that is to say, to
          give you the greater security, and to be a mediator,
          if mortal offence be given you by any villanous
          attempt.—The day seems not now to be so much
          in your power as it ought to be, since that now
          partly depends on your uncle, whose presence, at
          your own motion, he has wished on the occasion.
          A wish, were all real, very unlikely, I think, to be
          granted.'
    

* She means the freedom Mr. Lovelace took with her before the fire-plot. See Vol. V. Letter XI. When Miss Howe wrote this letter she could not know of that. ** See Vol. V. Letter XII.

     >>>      And thus situated, should he offer greater free-
          doms, must you not forgive him?

              I fear nothing (as I know who has said) that
          devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do against a
     >>>  virtue so established.*—But surprizes, my dear, in
          such a house as you are in, and in such circum-
          stances as I have mentioned, I greatly fear! the
     >>>  man one who has already triumphed over persons
          worthy of his alliance.
    
     >>>      What then have you to do, but to fly this house,
          this infernal house!—O that your heart would let
          you fly the man!
    
     >>>      If you should be disposed so to do, Mrs. Towns-
          end shall be ready at your command.—But if you
          meet with no impediments, no new causes of doubt,
          I think your reputation in the eye of the world,
     >>>  though not your happiness, is concerned, that you
          should be his—and yet I cannot bear that these
          libertines should be rewarded for their villany with
          the best of the sex, when the worst of it are too
          good for them.

              But if you meet with the least ground for
          suspicion; if he would detain you at the odious
          house, or wish you to stay, now you know what
     >>>  the people are; fly him, whatever your prospects
          are, as well as them.

              In one of your next airings, if you have no other
     >>>  way, refuse to return with him.  Name me for your
          intelligencer, that you are in a bad house, and if you
          think you cannot now break with him, seem rather
     >>>  to believe that he may not know it to be so; and
          that I do not believe he does: and yet this belief
          in us both must appear to be very gross.

              But suppose you desire to go out of town for the
          air, this sultry weather, and insist upon it?  You
          may plead your health for so doing.  He dare not
     >>>  resist such a plea.  Your brother's foolish scheme,
          I am told, is certainly given up; so you need not
          be afraid on that account.

              If you do not fly the house upon reading of this,
          or some way or other get out of it, I shall judge of
          his power over you, by the little you will have over
          either him or yourself.
    
     >>>      One of my informers has made such slight inquiries
          concerning Mrs. Fretchville.  Did he ever name
          to you the street or square she lived in?—I don't
     >>>  remember that you, in any of your's, mentioned the
          place of her abode to me.  Strange, very strange,
          this, I think!  No such person or house can be
          found, near any of the new streets or squares, where
          the lights I had from your letters led me to imagine
     >>>  her house might be.—Ask him what street the
          house is in, if he has not told you; and let me
     >>>  know.  If he make a difficulty of that circumstance,
          it will amount to a detection.—And yet, I think,
          you will have enough without this.

              I shall send this long letter by Collins, who
          changes his day to oblige me; and that he may try
          (now I know where you are) to get it into your
          own hands.  If he cannot, he will leave it at
          Wilson's.  As none of our letters by that convey-
          ance have miscarried when you have been in more
          apparently disagreeable situations than you are in at
          present.  I hope that this will go safe, if Collins
          should be obliged to leave it there.
    
     >>>      I wrote a short letter to you in my first agitations.
          It contained not above twenty lines, all full of fright,
          alarm, and execration.  But being afraid that my
          vehemence would too much affect you, I thought it
          better to wait a little, as well for the reasons already
          hinted at, as to be able to give you as many par-
          ticulars as I could, and my thoughts upon all.  And
          as they have offered, or may offer, you will be
          sufficiently armed to resist all his machinations, be
          what they will.
    
     >>>      One word more.  Command me up, if I can be
          of the least service or pleasure to you.  I value
          not fame; I value not censure; nor even life itself,
          I verily think, as I do your honour, and your friend-
          ship—For, is not your honour my honour?  And
          is not your friendship the pride of my life?

              May Heaven preserve you, my dearest creature,
          in honour and safety, is the prayer, the hourly
          prayer, of
    

Your ever-faithful and affectionate ANNA HOWE.

THURSDAY MORN. 5.  I have
     written all night

*** TO MISS HOWE MY DEAREST CREATURE,

How you have shocked, confounded, surprised, astonished me, by your dreadful communication!—My heart is too weak to bear up against such a stroke as this!—When all hope was with me! When my prospects were so much mended!—But can there be such villany in men, as in this vile principal, and equally vile agent!

I am really ill—very ill—grief and surprise, and, now I will say, despair, have overcome me!—All, all, you have laid down as conjecture, appears to me now to be more than conjecture!

O that your mother would have the goodness to permit me the presence of the only comforter that my afflicted, my half-broken heart, could be raised by. But I charge you, think not of coming up without her indulgent permission. I am too ill at present, my dear, to think of combating with this dreadful man; and of flying from this horrid house!— My bad writing will show you this.—But my illness will be my present security, should he indeed have meditated villany.—Forgive, O forgive me, my dearest friend, the trouble I have given you!—All must soon—But why add I grief to grief, and trouble to trouble?—But I charge you, my beloved creature, not to think of coming up without your mother's love, to the truly desolate and broken-spirited

CLARISSA HARLOWE. ***

Well, Jack!—And what thinkest thou of this last letter? Miss Howe values not either fame or censure; and thinkest thou, that this letter will not bring the little fury up, though she could procure no other conveyance than her higgler's panniers, one for herself, the other for her maid? She knows whither to come now. Many a little villain have I punished for knowing more than I would have her know, and that by adding to her knowledge and experience. What thinkest thou, Belford, if, by getting hither this virago, and giving cause for a lamentable letter from her to the fair fugitive, I should be able to recover her? Would she not visit that friend in her distress, thinkest thou, whose intended visit to her in her's brought her into the condition from which she herself had so perfidiously escaped?

Let me enjoy the thought!

Shall I send this letter?—Thou seest I have left room, if I fail in the exact imitation of so charming a hand, to avoid too strict a scrutiny. Do they not both deserve it of me? Seest thou now how the raving girl threatens her mother? Ought she not to be punished? And can I be a worse devil, or villain, or monster, that she calls me in the long letter I enclose (and has called me in her former letters) were I to punish them both as my vengeance urges me to punish them? And when I have executed that my vengeance, how charmingly satisfied may they both go down into the country and keep house together, and have a much better reason than their pride could give them, for living the single life they have both seemed so fond of!

I will set about transcribing it this moment, I think. I can resolve afterwards. Yet what has poor Hickman done to deserve this of me!—But gloriously would it punish the mother (as well as daughter) for all her sordid avarice; and for her undutifulness to honest Mr. Howe, whose heart she actually broke. I am on tiptoe, Jack, to enter upon this project. Is not one country as good to me as another, if I should be obliged to take another tour upon it?

***

But I will not venture. Hickman is a good man, they tell me. I love a good man. I hope one of these days to be a good man myself. Besides, I have heard within this week something of this honest fellow that shows he has a soul; when I thought, if he had one, that it lay a little of the deepest to emerge to notice, except on very extraordinary occasions; and that then it presently sunk again into its cellula adiposa.—The man is a plump man.—Didst ever see him, Jack?

But the principal reason that withholds me [for 'tis a tempting project!] is, for fear of being utterly blown up, if I should not be quick enough with my letter, or if Miss Howe should deliberate on setting out, to try her mother's consent first; in which time a letter from my frighted beauty might reach her; for I have no doubt, wherever she has refuged, but her first work was to write to her vixen friend. I will therefore go on patiently; and take my revenge upon the little fury at my leisure.

But in spite of my compassion for Hickman, whose better character is sometimes my envy, and who is one of those mortals that bring clumsiness into credit with the mothers, to the disgrace of us clever fellows, and often to our disappointment, with the daughters; and who has been very busy in assisting these double-armed beauties against me; I swear by all the dii majores, as well as minores, that I will have Miss Howe, if I cannot have her more exalted friend! And then, if there be as much flaming love between these girls as they pretend, will my charmer profit by her escape?

And now, that I shall permit Miss Howe to reign a little longer, let me ask thee, if thou hast not, in the enclosed letter, a fresh instance, that a great many of my difficulties with her sister-toast are owing to this flighty girl?—'Tis true that here was naturally a confounded sharp winter air; and if a little cold water was thrown into the path, no wonder that it was instantly frozen; and that the poor honest traveller found it next to impossible to keep his way; one foot sliding back as fast as the other advanced, to the endangering of his limbs or neck. But yet I think it impossible that she should have baffled me as she has done (novice as she is, and never before from under her parents' wings) had she not been armed by a virago, who was formerly very near showing that she could better advise than practise. But this, I believe, I have said more than once before.

I am loth to reproach myself, now the cruel creature has escaped me; For what would that do, but add to my torment? since evils self-caused, and avoidable, admit not of palliation or comfort. And yet, if thou tellest me, that all her strength was owing to my weakness, and that I have been a cursed coward in this whole affair; why, then, Jack, I may blush, and be vexed; but, by my soul, I cannot contradict thee.

But this, Belford, I hope—that if I can turn the poison of the enclosed letter into wholesome ailment; that is to say, if I can make use of it to my advantage; I shall have thy free consent to do it.

I am always careful to open covers cautiously, and to preserve seals entire. I will draw out from this cursed letter an alphabet. Nor was Nick Rowe ever half so diligent to learn Spanish, at the Quixote recommendation of a certain peer, as I will be to gain the mastery of this vixen's hand.





LETTER XXI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 8.

After my last, so full of other hopes, the contents of this will surprise you. O my dearest friend, the man has at last proved himself to be a villain!

It was with the utmost difficulty last night, that I preserved myself from the vilest dishonour. He extorted from me a promise of forgiveness, and that I would see him next day, as if nothing had happened: but if it were possible to escape from a wretch, who, as I have too much reason to believe, formed a plot to fire the house, to frighten me, almost naked, into his arms, how could I see him next day?

I have escaped—Heaven be praised that I have!—And now have no other concern, than that I fly from the only hope that could have made such a husband tolerable to me; the reconciliation with my friends, so agreeably undertaken by my uncle.

All my present hope is, to find some reputable family, or person of my own sex, who is obliged to go beyond sea, or who lives abroad; I care not whether; but if I might choose, in some one of our American colonies— never to be heard of more by my relations, whom I have so grievously offended.

Nor let your generous heart be moved at what I write. If I can escape the dreadfullest part of my father's malediction, (for the temporary part is already, in a manner, fulfilled, which makes me tremble in apprehension of the other,) I shall think the wreck of my worldly fortunes a happy composition.

Neither is there need of the renewal of your so-often-tendered goodness to me: for I have with me rings and other valuables, that were sent me with my clothes, which will turn into money to answer all I can want, till Providence shall be pleased to put me into some want to help myself, if, for my further punishment, my life is to be lengthened beyond my wishes.

Impute not this scheme, my beloved friend, either to dejection on one hand, or to that romantic turn on the other, which we have supposed generally to obtain with our sex, from fifteen to twenty-two: for, be pleased to consider my unhappy situation, in the light in which it really must appear to every considerate person who knows it. In the first place, the man, who has endeavoured to make me, his property, will hunt me as a stray: and he knows he may do so with impunity; for whom have I to protect me from him?

Then as to my estate, the envied estate, which has been the original cause of all my misfortunes, it shall never be mine upon litigated terms. What is there in being enabled to boast, that I am worth more than I can use, or wish to use? And if my power is circumscribed, I shall not have that to answer for, which I should have, if I did not use it as I ought: which very few do. I shall have no husband, of whose interest I ought to be so regardful, as to prevent me doing more than justice to others, that I may not do less for him. If therefore my father will be pleased (as I shall presume, in proper time, to propose to him) to pay two annuities out of it, one to my dear Mrs. Norton, which may make her easy for the remainder of her life, as she is now growing into years; the other of 50£. per annum, to the same good woman, for the use of my poor, as I had the vanity to call a certain set of people, concerning whom she knows all my mind; that so as few as possible may suffer by the consequences of my error; God bless them, and give them heart's ease and content, with the rest!

Other reasons for my taking the step I have hinted at, are these.

This wicked man knows I have no friend in the world but you: your neighbourhood therefore would be the first he would seek for me in, were you to think it possible for me to be concealed in it: and in this case you might be subjected to inconveniencies greater even than those which you have already sustained on my account.

From my cousin Morden, were he to come, I could not hope protection; since, by his letter to me, it is evident, that my brother has engaged him in his party: nor would I, by any means, subject so worthy a man to danger; as might be the case, from the violence of this ungovernable spirit.

These things considered, what better method can I take, than to go abroad to some one of the English colonies; where nobody but yourself shall know any thing of me; nor you, let me tell you, presently, nor till I am fixed, and (if it please God) in a course of living tolerably to my mind? For it is no small part of my concern, that my indiscretions have laid so heavy a tax upon you, my dear friend, to whom, once, I hoped to give more pleasure than pain.

I am at present at one Mrs. Moore's at Hampstead. My heart misgave me at coming to this village, because I had been here with him more than once: but the coach hither was so ready a conveniency, that I knew not what to do better. Then I shall stay here no longer than till I can receive your answer to this: in which you will be pleased to let me know, if I cannot be hid, according to your former contrivance, [happy, had I given into it at the time!] by Mrs. Townsend's assistance, till the heat of his search be over. The Deptford road, I imagine, will be the right direction to hear of a passage, and to get safely aboard.

O why was the great fiend of all unchained, and permitted to assume so specious a form, and yet allowed to conceal his feet and his talons, till with the one he was ready to trample upon my honour, and to strike the other into my heart!—And what had I done, that he should be let loose particularly upon me!

Forgive me this murmuring question, the effect of my impatience, my guilty impatience, I doubt: for, as I have escaped with my honour, and nothing but my worldly prospects, and my pride, my ambition, and my vanity, have suffered in this wretch of my hopefuller fortunes, may I not still be more happy than I deserve to be? And is it not in my own power still, by the Divine favour, to secure the greatest stake of all? And who knows but that this very path into which my inconsideration has thrown me, strewed as it is with briers and thorns, which tear in pieces my gaudier trappings, may not be the right path to lead me into the great road to my future happiness; which might have been endangered by evil communication?

And after all, are there not still more deserving persons than I, who never failed in any capital point of duty, than have been more humbled than myself; and some too, by the errors of parents and relations, by the tricks and baseness of guardians and trustees, and in which their own rashness or folly had no part?

I will then endeavour to make the best of my present lot. And join with me, my best, my only friend, in praying, that my punishment may end here; and that my present afflictions may be sanctified to me.

This letter will enable you to account for a line or two, which I sent to Wilson's, to be carried to you, only for a feint, to get his servant out of the way. He seemed to be left, as I thought, for a spy upon me. But he returning too soon, I was forced to write a few lines for him to carry to his master, to a tavern near Doctors Commons, with the same view: and this happily answered my end.

I wrote early in the morning a bitter letter to the wretch, which I left for him obvious enough; and I suppose he has it by this time. I kept no copy of it. I shall recollect the contents, and give you the particulars of all, at more leisure.

I am sure you will approve of my escape—the rather, as the people of the house must be very vile: for they, and that Dorcas too, did hear me (I know they did) cry out for help: if the fire had been other than a villanous plot (although in the morning, to blind them, I pretended to think it otherwise) they would have been alarmed as much as I; and have run in, hearing me scream, to comfort me, supposing my terror was the fire; to relieve me, supposing it was any thing else. But the vile Dorcas went away as soon as she saw the wretch throw his arms about me!— Bless me, my dear, I had only my slippers and an under-petticoat on. I was frighted out of my bed, by her cries of fire; and that I should be burnt to ashes in a moment—and she to go away, and never to return, nor any body else! And yet I heard women's voices in the next room; indeed I did—an evident contrivance of them all:—God be praised, I am out of their house!

My terror is not yet over: I can hardly think myself safe: every well- dressed man I see from my windows, whether on horseback or on foot, I think to be him.

I know you will expedite an answer. A man and horse will be procured me to-morrow early, to carry this. To be sure, you cannot return an answer by the same man, because you must see Mrs. Townsend first: nevertheless, I shall wait with impatience till you can; having no friend but you to apply to; and being such a stranger to this part of the world, that I know not which way to turn myself; whither to go; nor what to do—What a dreadful hand have I made of it!

Mrs. Moore, at whose house I am, is a widow, and of good character: and of this one of her neighbours, of whom I bought a handkerchief, purposely to make inquiry before I would venture, informed me.

I will not set my foot out of doors, till I have your direction: and I am the more secure, having dropt words to the people of the house where the coach set me down, as if I expected a chariot to meet me in my way to Hendon; a village a little distance from this. And when I left their house, I walked backward and forward upon the hill; at first, not knowing what to do; and afterwards, to be certain that I was not watched before I ventured to inquire after a lodging.

You will direct for me, my dear, by the name of Mrs. Harriot Lucas.

Had I not made my escape when I did, I was resolved to attempt it again and again. He was gone to the Commons for a license, as he wrote me word; for I refused to see him, notwithstanding the promise he extorted from me.

How hard, how next to impossible, my dear, to avoid many lesser deviations, when we are betrayed into a capital one!

For fear I should not get away at my first effort, I had apprized him, that I would not set eye upon him under a week, in order to gain myself time for it in different ways. And were I so to have been watched as to have made it necessary, I would, after such an instance of the connivance of the women of the house, have run out into the street, and thrown myself into the next house I could have entered, or claim protection from the first person I had met—Women to desert the cause of a poor creature of their own sex, in such a situation, what must they be!—Then, such poor guilty sort of figures did they make in the morning after he was gone out—so earnest to get me up stairs, and to convince me, by the scorched window-boards, and burnt curtains and vallens, that the fire was real—that (although I seemed to believe all they would have me believe) I was more and more resolved to get out of their house at all adventures.

When I began, I thought to write but a few lines. But, be my subject what it will, I know not how to conclude when I write to you. It was always so: it is not therefore owing peculiarly to that most interesting and unhappy situation, which you will allow, however, to engross at present the whole mind of

Your unhappy, but ever-affectionate CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XXII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. FRIDAY MORNING, PAST TWO O'CLOCK.

Io Triumphe!—Io Clarissa, sing!—Once more, what a happy man thy friend!—A silly dear novice, to be heard to tell the coachman where to carry her!—And to go to Hampstead, of all the villages about London!— The place where we had been together more than once!

Methinks I am sorry she managed no better!—I shall find the recovery of her too easy a task, I fear! Had she but known how much difficulty enhances the value of any thing with me, and had she the least notion of obliging me by it, she would never have stopt short at Hampstead, surely.

Well, but after al this exultation, thou wilt ask, If I have already got back my charmer?—I have not;—But knowing where she is, is almost the same thing as having her in my power. And it delights me to think how she will start and tremble when I first pop upon her! How she will look with conscious guilt, that will more than wipe off my guilt of Wednesday night, when she sees her injured lover, and acknowledged husband, from whom, the greatest of felonies, she would have stolen herself.

But thou wilt be impatient to know how I came by my lights. Read the enclosed letter, as I have told thee, I have given my fellow, in apprehension of such an elopement; and that will tell thee all, and what I may reasonably expect from the rascal's diligence and management, if he wishes ever to see my face again.

I received it about half an hour ago, just as I was going to lie down in my clothes, and it has made me so much alive, that, midnight as it is, I have sent for a Blunt's chariot, to attend me here by day peep, with my usual coachman, if possible; and knowing not what else to do with myself, I sat down, and, in the joy of my heart, have not only written thus far, but have concluded upon the measures I shall take when admitted to her presence: for well am I aware of the difficulties I shall have to contend with from her perverseness.

HONNERED SIR,

This is to sertifie your Honner, as how I am heer at Hamestet, where I have found out my lady to be in logins at one Mrs. Moore's, near upon Hamestet-Hethe. And I have so ordered matters, that her ladyship cannot stur but I must have notice of her goins and comins. As I knowed I durst not look into your Honner's fase, if I had not found out my lady, thoff she was gone off the prems's in a quarter of an hour, as a man may say; so I knowed you would be glad at hart to know I have found her out: and so I send thiss Petur Patrick, who is to have 5 shillings, it being now near 12 of the clock at nite; for he would not stur without a hearty drink too besides: and I was willing all shulde be snug likeways at the logins before I sent.

I have munny of youre Honner's; but I thought as how, if the man was payed by me beforend, he mought play trix; so left that to your Honner.

My lady knows nothing of my being hereaway. But I thoute it best not to leve the plase, because she has taken the logins but for a fue nites.

If your Honner come to the Upper Flax, I will be in site all the day about the tapp-house or the Hethe. I have borrowed another cote, instead of your Honner's liferie, and a blacke wigg; so cannot be knoen by my lady, iff as howe she shuld see me: and have made as if I had the tooth- ake; so with my hancriffe at my mothe, the teth which your Honner was pleased to bett out with your Honner's fyste, and my dam'd wide mothe, as your Honner notifys it to be, cannot be knoen to be mine.

The two inner letters I had from my lady, before she went off the prems's. One was to be left at Mr. Wilson's for Miss Howe. The next was to be for your Honner. But I knowed you was not at the plase directed; and being afear'd of what fell out, so I kept them for your Honner, and so could not give um to you, until I seed you. Miss How's I only made belief to her ladyship as I carried it, and sed as how there was nothing left for hur, as she wished to knoe: so here they be bothe.

I am, may it please your Honner, Your Honner's must dutiful, And, wonce more, happy servant, WM. SUMMERS.

***

The two inner letters, as Will. calls them, 'tis plain, were written for no other purpose, but to send him out of the way with them, and one of them to amuse me. That directed to Miss Howe is only this:—

THURSDAY, JUNE 8.

I write this, my dear Miss Howe, only for a feint, and to see if it will go current. I shall write at large very soon, if not miserably prevented!!!

CL. H. ***

Now, Jack, will not her feints justify mine! Does she not invade my province, thinkest thou? And is it not now fairly come to—Who shall most deceive and cheat the other? So, I thank my stars, we are upon a par at last, as to this point, which is a great ease to my conscience, thou must believe. And if what Hudibras tells us is true, the dear fugitive has also abundance of pleasure to come.