[Letter 207.I: Miss Clarissa Harlowe to Miss Howe]

(The lady, after having given to Miss Howe the particulars which are contained in Mr Lovelace's last letter, thus expresses herself:)

A principal consolation arising from these favourable appearances is that I, who have now but one only friend, shall most probably, and if it be not my own fault, have as many new ones as there are persons in Mr Lovelace's family; and this whether Mr Lovelace treat me kindly, or not. And who knows, but that by degrees, those new friends, by their rank and merit, may have weight enough to get me restored to the favour of my relations? Till which can be effected, I shall not be tolerably easy. Happy I never expect to be. Mr Lovelace's mind and mind are vastly different; different in essentials.

But as matters are at present circumstanced, I pray you, my dear friend, to keep to yourself everything that, revealed, might bring discredit to him-Better anybody "Expose a husband than a wife if I am to be so; and what is said by you will be thought to come from me.

It shall be my constant prayer, that all the felicities which this world can afford, may be yours. And that the Almighty will never suffer you nor yours to the remotest posterity, to want such a friend as my Anna Howe has been to

 

Her CLARISSA HARLOWE

Mr Lovelace, to show the wantonness of his invention, in his next gives his friend an
account of a scheme he had framed to be revenged on Miss Howe, when she set out
for the Isle of Wight; which he heard she was to do, accompanied by her mother and Mr Hickman, in order to visit a rich aunt there who desired to see her, and her future consort, before she changed her name.  But as she does not intend to carry it into execution, it is omitted. [see p. 16].

 

 

 

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