ons of oaths
and curses to every pedantic line. Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by
the like execrations. And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse
it as we.

You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
my cousin. But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you. I have
not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and
these, joined to her former sufferings,--What have you not, Mr. Lovelace,
to answer for?

Lovel. Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?
Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable? Brother and
sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
put all right with every body?--And what now can be done?

Lord M. I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
cousin. And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
thoughts of forgiving all that's past. Do you think, Colonel, if there
should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to
bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?

Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
English simplicity. Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?

Lovel. My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to
the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's
stories. But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have
some meaning I cannot fathom.

Col. Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
two or three affairs that press upon me;