ched woman's particularly. But as these confused ideas
might be owing to the terror I had conceived of the worse than masculine
violence she had been permitted to assume to me, for expressing my
abhorrence of her house; and as what I suffered from his barbarity wants
not that aggravation; I will say no more on a subject so shocking as this
must ever be to my remembrance.

I never saw the personating wretches afterwards. He persisted to the
last, (dreadfully invoking Heaven as a witness to the truth of his
assertion) that they were really and truly the ladies they pretended to
be; declaring, that they could not take leave of me, when they left town,
because of the state of senselessness and phrensy I was in. For their
intoxicating, or rather stupefying, potions had almost deleterious
effects upon my intellects, as I have hinted; insomuch that, for several
days together, I was under a strange delirium; now moping, now dozing,
now weeping, now raving, now scribbling, tearing what I scribbled as fast
as I wrote it: most miserable when now-and-then a ray of reason brought
confusedly to my remembrance what I had suffered.

LETTER LXX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
[IN CONTINUATION.]

[The lady next gives an account,

Of her recovery from her delirium and sleepy disorder:

Of her attempt to get away in his absence:

Of the conversations that followed, at his return, between them:

Of the guilty figure he made:

Of her resolution not to have him:

Of her several efforts to escape:

Of her treaty with Dorcas to assist her in it:

Of Dorcas's dropping the promissory note, undoubtedly, as she says, on
purpose to betray her:

Of her triumph over all the creatures of the house, assembled to terrify
her; and perhaps to commit fresh outrages upon her:

Of his setting out for M. Hall:

Of his repeated letters to induce her to meet him at the altar, on her
uncle's anniversary:

Of her determined silence to them all:

Of her second escape, effected, as she says, contrary to her own
expectation: the attempt being at first but the intended prelude to
a more promising one, which she had formed in her mind:

And of other particulars; which being to be found in Mr. Lovelace's
letters preceding, and the letter of his friend Belford, are
omitted. She then proceeds:]

The very hour that I found myself in a place of safety, I took pen to
write to you. When I began, I designed