dearest Life, said he, this is too much!--too much, indeed!--Let
us--let us retire. Mrs. Norton, who (attracted by the awful receptacle)
had but just left the good lady, hastened to her--Dear, dear woman, cried
the unhappy parent, flinging her arms about her neck, bear me, bear me
hence!--O my child! my child! my own Clarissa Harlowe! thou pride of my
life so lately!--never, never more must I behold thee!

I supported the unhappy father, Mrs. Norton the sinking mother, into the
next parlour. She threw herself on a settee there; he into an
elbow-chair by her--the good woman at her feet, her arms clasped round
her waist. The two mothers, I as may call them, of my beloved cousin,
thus tenderly engaged! What a variety of distress in these woeful
scenes!

The unhappy father, in endeavouring to comfort his lady, loaded himself.
Would to God, my dear, said he, would to God I had no more to charge
myself with than you have!--You relented!--you would have prevailed upon
me to relent!

The greater my fault, said she, when I knew that displeasure was carried
too high, to acquiesce as I did!--What a barbarous parent was I, to let
two angry children make me forget that I was mother to a third--to such a
third!

Mrs. Norton used arguments and prayers to comfort her--O, my dear Norton,
answered the unhappy lady, you was the dear creature's more natural
mother!--Would to Heaven I had no more to answer for than you have!

Thus the unhappy pair unavailingly recriminated, till my cousin Hervey
entered, and, with Mrs. Norton, conducted up to her own chamber the
inconsolable mother. The two uncles, and Mr. Hervey, came in at the same
time, and prevailed upon the afflicted father to retire with them to his
--both giving up all thoughts of ever seeing more the child whose death
was so deservedly regretted by them.

Time only, Mr. Belford, can combat with advantage such a heavy
deprivation as this. Advice will not do, while the loss is recent.
Nature will have way given to it, (and so it ought,) till sorrow has in a
manner exhausted itself; and then reason and religion will come in
seasonably with their powerful aids, to raise the drooping heart.

I see here no face that is the same I saw at my first arrival. Proud and
haughty every countenance then, unyielding to entreaty; now, how greatly
are they humbled!--The utmost distress is apparent in every protracted
feature, and in every bursting muscle, of each disconsolate mourner.