Permit me, however, to make one request to my good Lord M., and to Lady Betty, and Lady Sarah, and to your kind self, and your sister.—­It is, that you will all be pleased to join your authority and interests to prevail upon Mr. Lovelace not to molest me farther.

Be pleased to tell him, that, if I am designed for life, it will be very cruel in him to attempt to hunt me out of it; for I am determined never to see him more, if I can help it.  The more cruel, because he knows that I have nobody to defend me from him:  nor do I wish to engage any body to his hurt, or to their own.

If I am, on the other hand, destined for death, it will be no less cruel, if he will not permit me to die in peace—­since a peaceable and happy end I wish him; indeed I do.

Every worldly good attend you, dear Madam, and every branch of the honourable family, is the wish of one, whose misfortune it is that she is obliged to disclaim any other title than that of,

Dear Madam,
Your and their obliged and faithful servant,
Clarissa Harlowe.

LETTER LXIX

Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, ESQ. 
Thursday afternoon, Aug. 3.

I am just now agreeably surprised by the following letter, delivered into my hands by a messenger from the lady.  The letter she mentions, as enclosed,* I have returned, without taking a copy of it.  The contents of it will soon be communicated to you, I presume, by other hands.  They are an absolute rejection of thee—­Poor Lovelace!

* See Miss Harlowe’s Letter, No.  LXVIII.

TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.  AUG. 3.

SIR,

You have frequently offered to oblige me in any thing that shall be within your power:  and I have such an opinion of you, as to be willing to hope that, at the times you made these offers, you meant more than mere compliment.

I have therefore two requests to make to you:  the first I will now mention; the other, if this shall be complied with, otherwise not.

It behoves me to leave behind me such an account as may clear up my conduct to several of my friends who will not at present concern themselves about me:  and Miss Howe, and her mother, are very solicitous that I will do so.

I am apprehensive that I shall not have time to do this; and you will not wonder that I have less and less inclination to set about such a painful task; especially as I find myself unable to look back with patience on what I have suffered; and shall be too much discomposed by the retrospection, were I obliged to make it, to proceed with the requisite temper in a task of still greater importance which I have before me.

It is very evident to me that your wicked friend has given you, from time to time, a circumstantial account of all his behaviour to me, and devices against me; and you have more than once assured me, that he has done my character all the justice I could wish for, both by writing and speech.