s trouble,) so as they
might get her again, then the cleaver and gridiron might go to work with
all their heart.

'The wench, glad of this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was
laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt
on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations.
And this flight, which was certainly more owing to terror than guilt,
was, in the true Old Bailey construction, made a confirmation of the
latter.'

***

These are the particulars of Miss Harlowe's flight. Thou'lt hardly think
me too minute.--How I long to triumph over thy impatience and fury on the
occasion!

Let me beseech thee, my dear Lovelace, in thy next letter, to rave most
gloriously!--I shall be grievously disappointed if thou dost not.

***

Where, Lovelace, can the poor lady be gone? And who can describe the
distress she must be in?

By thy former letters, it may be supposed, that she can have very little
money: nor, by the suddenness of her flight, more clothes than those she
has on. And thou knowest who once said,* 'Her parents will not receive
her. Her uncles will not entertain her. Her Norton is in their
direction, and cannot. Miss Howe dare not. She has not one friend or
intimate in town--entirely a stranger to it.' And, let me add, has been
despoiled of her honour by the man for whom she had made all these
sacrifices; and who stood bound to her by a thousand oaths and vows, to
be her husband, her protector, and friend!

* See Vol. IV. Letter XXI.

How strong must be her resentment of the barbarous treatment she has
received! how worthy of herself, that it has made her hate the man she
once loved! and, rather than marry him, choose to expose her disgrace to
the whole world: to forego the reconciliation with her friends which her
heart was so set upon: and to hazard a thousand evils to which her youth
and her sex may too probably expose an indigent and friendly beauty!

Rememberest thou not that home push upon thee, in one of the papers
written in her delirium; of which, however it savours not?----

I will assure thee, that I have very often since most seriously reflected
upon it: and as thy intended second outrage convinces me that it made no
impression upon thee then, and perhaps thou hast never thought of it
since, I will transcribe the sentence.

'If, as religion teaches us, God will judge us, in a great measure! by
our benevolent or evil ac