very bad cause, if I endeavoured to mislead my judge.

She began with representing to me the danger I had been in, had my
father come up, as he would have done had he not been hindered--by
Mr. Solmes, among the rest. She reflected upon my Norton, as if she
encouraged me in my perverseness. She ridiculed me for my supposed
esteem for Mr. Lovelace--was surprised that the witty, the prudent, nay,
the dutiful and pi--ous [so she sneeringly pronounced the word] Clarissa
Harlowe, should be so strangely fond of a profligate man, that her
parents were forced to lock her up, in order to hinder her from running
into his arms. 'Let me ask you, my dear, said she, how you now keep
your account of the disposition of your time? How many hours in the
twenty-four do you devote to your needle? How many to your prayers?
How many to letter-writing? And how many to love?--I doubt, I doubt, my
little dear, was her arch expression, the latter article is like Aaron's
rod, and swallows up the rest!--Tell me; is it not so?'

To these I answered, That it was a double mortification to me to owe
my safety from the effects of my father's indignation to a man I could
never thank for any thing. I vindicated the good Mrs. Norton with a
warmth that was due to her merit. With equal warmth I resented her
reflections upon me on Mr. Lovelace's account. As to the disposition of
my time in the twenty-four hours, I told her it would better have become
her to pity a sister in distress, than to exult over her--especially,
when I could too justly attribute to the disposition of some of her
wakeful hours no small part of that distress.

She raved extremely at this last hint: but reminded me of the gentle
treatment of all my friends, my mother's in particular, before it
came to this. She said, that I had discovered a spirit they never had
expected: that, if they had thought me such a championess, they would
hardly have ventured to engage with me: but that now, the short and the
long of it was, that the matter had gone too far to be given up: that it
was become a contention between duty and willfulness; whether a parent's
authority were to yield to a daughter's obstinacy, or the contrary: that
I must therefore bend or break, that was all, child.

I told her, that I wished the subject were of such a nature, that I
could return her pleasantry with equal lightness of heart: but that, if
Mr. Solmes had such merit in every body's eyes, in hers, particularly,
why might