ory 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.

I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
relations who never before had seen him. Yet do you think it possible
for them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to
forbear smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical
penances? A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes,
than in the eyes of others. If he be, he will have a diffidence, which
will give an awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be
no more to the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he
meets with from your friends, or to his own credit.

I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
he addresses. It is a mark of his politene