But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all will be given.

God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and grievously offended father and mother!—­and continue in honour, favour, and merit, my happy sister!—­May God forgive my brother, and protect him from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his sister’s honour!—­And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now than ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be blessed and happy in them, and in each other!—­And, in order to this, may you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,

The unhappy
Clarissa Harlowe!

LETTER V

Mrs. Norton, to miss Clarissa Harlowe
Monday, Aug. 14.

All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to you to go to one of the plantations.  This, I believe, is owing to some misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.

I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace’s family in his behalf.  This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in time, reconcile every body to you.  For your own friends will not believe that he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families is such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.

I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief particulars of your sad story under your own hand.  But let me tell you, at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your humble way to make light faults heavy against yourself:  and well might you, my dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of them into excellencies.

Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance any visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character.  As that has not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will not, in a desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness of your own innocence) permit it to suffer.  Difficult situations, you know, my dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of virtue.

I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand’s letter has been received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you.  However, if you will give me leave, that shall not detain me from you.  Nor would I stay for that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation, I may be able to do you service here.