I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman could resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced to) the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.

What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you will not communicate to me!—­Fie upon them!  How my heart rises!—­But I dare say no more—­though you yourself now begin to think they use you with great severity.

Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the horror they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I have been teased to death almost to name a day.  This has given him airs:  and, did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as insolently as if he were sure of me.  I have been forced to mortify him no less than four times since we have been here.

I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were not to be passed over.  Not designed ones, he said:  but that was a poor excuse, as I told him:  for, had they been designed, he should never have come into my presence more:  that they were not, showed his want of thought and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his probatory state.

He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.

And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!—­So you add ingratitude to negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an excuse, design, which deserves none.

I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble, that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends:  for, as you have said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.

I long to be nearer to you:  but that must not yet be, it seems.  Pray, my dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.

May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the prayers of

Your ever faithful and affectionate
Anna Howe.

P.S.  Excuse me that I did not write before:  it was owing to a little
      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.

LETTER XXXII

Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to miss Howe
Friday, Aug. 25.

You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your silence.  I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and dear friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such agreeable excursion as that you mention.

I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.

I was always very grave with you upon this subject:  and while your own and a worthy man’s future happiness are in the question, I must enter into it, whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live:  and indeed I am very ill.