May Heaven protect you, Sir, in all your ways; and, once more, I pray, reward you for all your kindness to me!  A kindness so worthy of your heart, and so exceedingly grateful to mine:  that of seeking to make peace, and to reconcile parents to a once-beloved child; uncles to a niece late their favourite; and a brother and sister to a sister whom once they thought not unworthy of that tender relation.  A kindness so greatly preferable to the vengeance of a murdering sword.

Be a comforter, dear Sir, to my honoured parents, as you have been to me; and may we, through the Divine goodness to us both, meet in that blessed eternity, into which, as I humbly trust, I shall have entered when you will read this.

So prays, and to her latest hour will pray, my dear Cousin Morden, my friend, my guardian, but not my avenger—­[dear Sir! remember that!—­]

Your ever-affectionate and obliged
Clarissa Harlowe.

LETTER XLV

Colonel Morden, to John Belford, Esq. 
Saturday, Sept. 23.

DEAR SIR,

I am very sorry that any thing you have heard I have said should give you uneasiness.

I am obliged to you for the letters you have communicated to me; and still further for your promise to favour me with others occasionally.

All that relates to my dear cousin I shall be glad to see, be it from whom it will.

I leave to your own discretion, what may or may not be proper for Miss Howe to see from a pen so free as mine.

I admire her spirit.  Were she a man, do you think, Sir, she, at this time, would have your advice to take upon such a subject as that upon which you write?

Fear not, however, that your communications shall put me upon any measures that otherwise I should not have taken.  The wickedness, Sir, is of such a nature, as admits not of aggravation.

Yet I do assure you, that I have not made any resolutions that will be a tie upon me.

I have indeed expressed myself with vehemence upon the occasion.  Who could forbear to do so?  But it is not my way to resolve in matters of moment, till opportunity brings the execution of my purposes within my reach.  We shall see by what manner of spirit this young man will be actuated on his recovery.  If he continue to brave and defy a family, which he has so irreparably injured—­if—­but resolutions depending upon future contingencies are best left to future determination, as I just now hinted.

Mean time, I will own that I think my cousin’s arguments unanswerable.  No good man but must be influenced by them.—­But, alas!  Sir, who is good?

As to your arguments; I hope you will believe me, when I assure you, as I now do, that your opinion and your reasonings have, and will always have, great and deserved weight with me; and that I respect you still more than I did, if possible, for your expostulations in support of my cousin’s pious injunctions to me.  They come from you, Sir, with the greatest propriety, as her executor and representative; and likewise as you are a man of humanity, and a well-wisher to both parties.