What would I give to come at the copies of the letters to which those of Miss Howe are answers!

The next letter is dated May 3.* In this the little termagant expresses her astonishment, that her mother should write to Miss Harlowe, to forbid her to correspond with her daughter.  Mr. Hickman, she says, is of opinion, ‘that she ought not to obey her mother.’  How the creeping fellow trims between both!  I am afraid, that I must punish him, as well as this virago; and I have a scheme rumbling in my head, that wants but half an hour’s musing to bring into form, that will do my business upon both.  I cannot bear, that the parental authority should be thus despised, thus trampled under foot.  But observe the vixen, ’’Tis well he is of her opinion; for her mother having set her up, she must have somebody to quarrel with.’—­Could a Lovelace have allowed himself a greater license?  This girl’s a devilish rake in her heart.  Had she been a man, and one of us, she’d have outdone us all in enterprise and spirit.

* See Vol.  IV.  Letter X.

‘She wants but very little farther provocation,’ she says, ’to fly privately to London.  And if she does, she will not leave her till she sees her either honourably married, or quit of the wretch.’  Here, Jack, the transcriber Sally has added a prayer—­’For the Lord’s sake, dear Mr. Lovealce, get this fury to London!’—­Her fate, I can tell thee, Jack, if we had her among us, should not be so long deciding as her friend’s.  What a gantelope would she run, when I had done with her, among a dozen of her own pitiless sex, whom my charmer shall never see!—­But more of this anon.

I find by this letter, that my saucy captive has been drawing the characters of every varlet of ye.  Nor am I spared in it more than you.  ‘The man’s a fool, to be sure, my dear.’  Let me perish, if they either of them find me one!—­’A silly fellow, at least.’  Cursed contemptible!—­ ‘I see not but they are a set of infernals!’ There’s one for thee, Lovelace! and yet she would have her friend marry a Beelzebub.—­And what have any of us done, (within the knowledge of Miss Harlowe,) that she should give such an account of us, as should excuse so much abuse from Miss Howe!—­But the occasion that shall warrant this abuse is to come!

She blames her, for ’not admitting Miss Partington to her bed—­watchful, as you are, what could have happened?—­If violence were intended, he would not stay for the night.’  I am ashamed to have this hinted to me by this virago.  Sally writes upon this hint—­’See, Sir, what is expected from you.  An hundred, and an hundred times have we told you of this.’—­ And so they have.  But to be sure, the advice from them was not half the efficacy as it will be from Miss Howe.—­’You might have sat up after her, or not gone to bed,’ proceeds she.

But can there be such apprehensions between them, yet the one advise her to stay, and the other resolve to wait my imperial motion for marriage?  I am glad I know that.