This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack, describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe’s character and visiters.*

* See Vol.  VII.  Letter LXXXI.

I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it:  for I made it, though not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths and curses to every pedantic line.  Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by the like execrations.  And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse it as we.

You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit my cousin.  But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the pedant’s hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you.  I have not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and these, joined to her former sufferings,—­What have you not, Mr. Lovelace, to answer for?

Lovel.  Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?  Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable?  Brother and sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to put all right with every body?—­And what now can be done?

Lord M. I have great hopes that Col.  Morden may yet prevail upon his cousin.  And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some thoughts of forgiving all that’s past.  Do you think, Colonel, if there should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present, that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?

Col.  Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the English simplicity.  Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?

Lovel.  My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that’s as well, as to the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author’s stories.  But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice.  She must have some meaning I cannot fathom.

Col.  Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with:  and after I have had some talk with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things.  Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and find she wants consolation.