Yet his teasing ways are intolerable; his acquiescence with your slight delays, and his resignedness to the distance you now keep him at, (for a fault so much slighter, as he must think, than the punishment,) are unaccountable:  He doubts your love of him, that is very probable; but you have reason to be surprised at his want of ardour; a blessing so great within his reach, as I may say.

By the time you have read to this place, you will have no doubt of what has been the issue of the conference between the two gentlemen.  I am equally shocked, and enraged against them all.  Against them all, I say; for I have tried your good Norton’s weight with your mother, (though at first I did not intend to tell you so,) to the same purpose as the gentleman sounded your uncle.  Never were there such determined brutes in the world!  Why should I mince the matter?  Yet would I fain, methinks, make an exception for your mother.

Your uncle will have it that you are ruined.  ’He can believe every thing bad of a creature, he says, who could run away with a man; with such a one especially as Lovelace.  They expected applications from you, when some heavy distress had fallen upon you.  But they are all resolved not to stir an inch in your favour; no, not to save your life!’

My dearest soul, resolve to assert your right.  Claim your own, and go and live upon it, as you ought.  Then, if you marry not, how will the wretches creep to you for your reversionary dispositions!

You were accused (as in your aunt’s letter) ’of premeditation and contrivance in your escape.’  Instead of pitying you, the mediating person was called upon ’to pity them; who once, your uncle said, doated upon you:  who took no joy but in your presence:  who devoured your words as you spoke them:  who trod over again your footsteps, as you walked before them.’—­And I know not what of this sort.

Upon the whole, it is now evident to me, and so it must be to you, when you read this letter, that you must be his.  And the sooner you are so the better.  Shall we suppose that marriage is not in your power?—­I cannot have patience to suppose that.

I am concerned, methinks, to know how you will do to condescend, (now you see you must be his,) after you have kept him at such a distance; and for the revenge his pride may put him upon taking for it.  But let me tell you, that if my going up, and sharing fortunes with you, will prevent such a noble creature from stooping too low; much more, were it likely to prevent your ruin, I would not hesitate a moment about it.  What is the whole world to me, weighed against such a friend as you are?  Think you, that any of the enjoyments of this life could be enjoyments to me, were you involved in calamities, from which I could either alleviate or relieve you, by giving up those enjoyments?  And what in saying this, and acting up to it, do I offer you, but the frits of a friendship your worth has created?