you have not
shown, whether you had deserved it or not:--nor, at the worst, lost
either a kind sister, or a pitying friend, in the most excellent of
sisters.

But why run I into length to such a poor thing? why push I so weak an
adversary? whose first letter is all low malice, and whose next is made
up of falsehood and inconsistence, as well as spite and ill-manners! yet
I was willing to give you a part of my mind. Call for more of it; it
shall be at your service: from one, who, though she thanks God she is not
your sister, is not your enemy: but that she is not the latter, is
withheld but by two considerations; one that you bear, though unworthily,
a relation to a sister so excellent; the other, that you are not of
consequence enough to engage any thing but the pity and contempt of

A.H.

LETTER XXXVIII

MRS. HARLOWE, TO MRS. HOWE
SAT. JULY 22.

DEAR MADAM,

I send you, enclosed, copies of five letters that have passed between
Miss Howe and my Arabella. You are a person of so much prudence and good
sense, and (being a mother yourself) can so well enter into the
distresses of all our family, upon the rashness and ingratitude of a
child we once doated upon, that, I dare say, you will not countenance the
strange freedoms your daughter has taken with us all. These are not the
only ones we have to complain of; but we were silent on the others, as
they did not, as these have done, spread themselves out upon paper. We
only beg, that we may not be reflected upon by a young lady who knows not
what we have suffered, and do suffer by the rashness of a naughty
creature who has brought ruin upon herself, and disgrace upon a family
which she had robbed of all comfort. I offer not to prescribe to your
known wisdom in this case; but leave it to you to do as you think most
proper. I am, Madam,

Your most humble servant,
CHARL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XXXIX

MRS. HOWE
[IN ANSWER.]
SAT. JULY 22.

DEAR MADAM,

I am highly offended with my daughter's letters to Miss Harlowe. I knew
nothing at all of her having taken such a liberty. These young creatures
have such romantic notions, some of live, some of friendship, that there
is no governing them in either. Nothing but time, and dear experience,
will convince them of their absurdities in both. I have chidden Miss
Howe very severely. I had before so just a notion of what your whole
family's distress must be, that, as I told your brother, Mr. Antony
Harlowe