is a
gentlewoman born, and the relict of a man of honour; and though left in
such circumstance as to oblige her to let lodgings, yet would she scorn
to be guilty of a wilful baseness.

I hope so--it may be so--I may be mistaken--but--but there is no crime, I
presume, no treason, to say I don't like her house.

The old dragon straddled up to her, with her arms kemboed again--her
eye-brows erect, like the bristles upon a hog's back, and, scouling over
her shortened nose, more than half-hid her ferret eyes. Her mouth was
distorted. She pouted out her blubber-lips, as if to bellows up wind and
sputter into her horse-nostrils; and her chin was curdled, and more than
usually prominent with passion.

With two Hoh-Madams she accosted the frighted fair-one; who, terrified,
caught hold of my sleeve.

I feared she would fall into fits; and, with a look of indignation, told
Mrs. Sinclair that these apartments were mine; and I could not imagine
what she meant, either by listening to what passed between me and my
spouse, or to come in uninvited; and still more I wondered at her giving
herself these strange liberties.

I may be to blame, Jack, for suffering this wretch to give herself these
airs; but her coming in was without my orders.

The old beldam, throwing herself into a chair, fell a blubbering and
exclaiming. And the pacifying of her, and endeavouring to reconcile the
lady to her, took up till near one o'clock.

And thus, between terror, and the late hour, and what followed, she was
diverted from the thoughts of getting out of the house to Mrs. Leeson's,
or any where else.

LETTER XII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 13.

And now, Belford, I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissa
lives. And I am

Your humble servant,
R. LOVELACE.

[The whole of this black transaction is given by the injured lady to Miss
Howe, in her subsequent letters, dated Thursday, July 6. See Letters
LXVII. LXVIII. LXIX.]

LETTER XIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
WATFORD, WEDN. JAN. 14.

O thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty
hour, for a whole age of repentance!

I am inexpressibly concerned at the fate of this matchless lady! She
could not have fallen into the hands of any other man breathing, and
suffered as she has done with thee.

I had written a great part of another long letter to try to soften thy
flinty heart in her favour;