O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring you to me!—­and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and there clung like a cat.  Come, said she, what will you give me, and I’ll be as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the life?

I was Belforded all over.  I could not bear such an insult upon the dear creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved’s name in her mouth in such a way.  But the little devil was not to be balked; but fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming, fainting, that I never saw my lovely girl so well aped.  Indeed I was almost taken in; for I could have fancied I had her before me once more.

O this sex! this artful sex! there’s no minding them.  At first, indeed, their grief and their concern may be real:  but, give way to the hurricane, and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your ears like the notes of a well-tuned viol.  And, by Sally, one sees that art will generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not easily know the difference.  Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only woman in the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite Job, (for I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.

They were very inquisitive about my fair-one.  They told me that you seldom came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs; would hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe, and lament her hard fate.  In short, that you despised them; was full of sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man, and marry.

A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet hast nothing to do but to go on in it:  and then what work hast thou to go through!  If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar’s cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready primed and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them dead, if they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most lamentably despised by every harlot thou hast made—­and, O Jack, how formidable, in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!

I intend to regulate my motions by Will.’s intelligence; for see this dear creature I must and will.  Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in two or three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I was ill.

I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow morning, will soon bring the lady back again.

Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow, with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me; after which my soul thirsteth.