Dolly would have several times written: but having
defended your fault with heat, and with a partiality
that alarmed us, (such a fall as your’s, 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.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to miss
Howe
[with the preceding.]
Sat. Morn. 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 determine 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 deserve annihilation, had I suffered my father
to kneel in vain.
