to treat you as Miss Harlowe's father and mother
treat her?

'What would I say, Madam!--That's easily answered. I would say nothing.
Can you think such usage, and to such a young lady, is to be borne?

'Come, come, Nancy, be not so hasty: you have heard but one side; and
that there is more to be said is plain, by your reading to me but parts
of her letters. They are her parents. They must know best. Miss Harlowe,
as fine a child as she is, must have done something, must have said
something, (you know how they loved her,) to make them treat her thus.

'But if she should be blameless, Madam, how does your own supposition
condemn them?'

Then came up Solmes's great estate; his good management of it--'A little
too NEAR indeed,' was the word!--[O how money-lovers, thought I, will
palliate! Yet my mother is a princess in spirit to this Solmes!] 'What
strange effects, added she, have prepossession and love upon young
ladies!'

I don't know how it is, my dear; but people take high delight in finding
out folks in love. Curiosity begets curiosity. I believe that's the
thing.

She proceeded to praise Mr. Lovelace's person, and his qualifications
natural and acquired. But then she would judge as mothers will judge,
and as daughters are very loth to judge: but could say nothing in answer
to your offer of living single; and breaking with him--if--if--[three or
four if's she made of one good one, if] that could be depended on.

But still obedience without reserve, reason what I will, is the burden
of my mother's song: and this, for my sake, as well as for yours.

I must needs say, that I think duty to parents is a very meritorious
excellence. But I bless God I have not your trials. We can all be good
when we have no temptation nor provocation to the contrary: but few
young persons (who can help themselves too as you can) would bear what
you bear.

I will now mention all that is upon my mind, in relation to the
behaviour of your father and uncles, and the rest of them, because
I would not offend you: but I have now a higher opinion of my own
sagacity, than ever I had, in that I could never cordially love any one
of your family but yourself. I am not born to like them. But it is my
duty to be sincere to my friend: and this will excuse her Anna Howe to
Miss Clarissa Harlowe.

I ought indeed to have excepted your mother; a lady to be reverenced:
and now to be pitied. What must have been her treatment, to be thus
subjugated, a