I will hope for His mercy, although I should not obtain that of any earthly person.

And I repeat my prohibition:—­You must not think of coming up to

Your ever dutiful
Cl.  Harlowe.

The obliging person, who left your’s for me this day, promised to call
      to-morrow, to see if I should have any thing to return.  I would
      not lose so good an opportunity.

LETTER LXIII

Mrs. Norton, to miss Clarissa Harlowe
Monday night, July 3.

O the barbarous villany of this detestable man!  And is there a man in the world who could offer violence to so sweet a creature!

And are you sure you are now out of his reach?

You command me to keep secret the particulars of the vile treatment you have met with; or else, upon an unexpected visit which Miss Harlowe favoured me with, soon after I had received your melancholy letter, I should have been tempted to own I had heard from you, and to have communicated to her such parts of your two letters as would have demonstrated your penitence, and your earnestness to obtain the revocation of your father’s malediction, as well as his protection from outrages that may still be offered to you.  But then your sister would probably have expected a sight of the letters, and even to have been permitted to take them with her to the family.

Yet they must one day be acquainted with the sad story:—­and it is impossible but they must pity you, and forgive you, when they know your early penitence, and your unprecedented sufferings; and that you have fallen by the brutal force of a barbarous ravisher, and not by the vile arts of a seducing lover.

The wicked man gives it out at Lord M.’s, as Miss Harlowe tells me, that he is actually married to you—­yet she believes it not:  nor had I the heart to let her know the truth.

She put it close to me, Whether I had not corresponded with you from the time of your going away?  I could safely tell her, (as I did,) that I had not:  but I said, that I was well informed, that you took extremely to heart your father’s imprecation; and that, if she would excuse me, I would say it would be a kind and sisterly part, if she would use her interest to get you discharged from it.

Among other severe things, she told me, that my partial fondness for you made me very little consider the honour of the rest of the family:  but, if I had not heard this from you, she supposed I was set on by Miss Howe.

She expressed herself with a good deal of bitterness against that young lady:  who, it seems, every where, and to every body, (for you must think that your story is the subject of all conversations,) rails against your family; treating them, as your sister says, with contempt, and even with ridicule.