* 1.  A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .   Aug. 1.
2.  A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .   Aug. 3.
3.  Mr. Belford’s Letter to me, which will show
you what my request was to him, and his
compliance with it; and the desired ex-
tracts from his friend’s letters  . . . .   Aug. 3, 4.
4.  A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
questing him to undertake the executor-
ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   Aug. 4.
5.  Mr. Belford’s acceptance of the trust  . .   Aug. 4.
6.  Miss Montague’s letter, with a generous
offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   Aug. 7.
7.  Mr. Lovelace’s to me . . . . . . . . . . .   Aug. 7.
8.  Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
to her’s of the day before  . . . . . . .   Aug. 8.
9.  Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .   Aug. 11.

You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little a space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for writing my own story.

I am very much tired and fatigued—­with—­I don’t know what—­with writing, I think—­but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot help aspiring to get out of, and above!

O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!——­While under our parents’ protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.  Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it.  Pitiable ignorance!—­Alas!  I knew nothing at all!

With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one dear to you, I am, and will ever be,

Your gratefully-affectionate
CL.  Harlowe.

LETTER III

Mr. Antony Harlowe, to miss CL.  Harlowe [in reply to her’s to her uncle Harlowe, of Thursday, Aug. 10.] Aug. 12.

UNHAPPY GIRL!

As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him; and as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the spirit of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now making yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you are in your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move compassion; which you do not deserve, having had so much warning:  for all these reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your brother, at his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even were you to write to me, without letting him know.  So indeed had we all; for he prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when you knew not how to help it.

* See Vol.  I. Letter XXXII.

Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain question, which your mother’s heart is too full of grief to let her ask; and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of your actions—­and yet it must be answered, before you’ll obtain from your father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you that.