I sent to Miss Howe, will, I
hope, satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting
his visits.

My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
--But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies nearest
the heart!--As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a fractured or
distempered part.

I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
be to the last hour of my life,

Your equally grateful and affectionate
CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XXXI

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
[IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG. 11.*]
YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.

* See Letter II. of this volume.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
return them by a particular hand. I am extremely concerned at your
indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
many, very many years.

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
probat