hich carries with it a rash
and undutiful appearance. And I should have thought it an inexcusable
one, had I been used with less severity than I have been of late; and
had I not had too great reason to apprehend, that I was to be made a
sacrifice to a man I could not bear to think of. But what is done, is
done--perhaps I could wish it had not; and that I had trusted to the
relenting of my dear and honourable parents.--Yet this from no other
motives but those of duty to them.--To whom I am ready to return (if
I may not be permitted to retire to The Grove) on conditions which I
before offered to comply with.

Nor shall I be in any sort of dependence upon the person by whose means
I have taken this truly-reluctant step, inconsistent with any reasonable
engagement I shall enter into, if I am not further precipitated. Let me
not have it to say, now at this important crisis! that I have a sister,
but not a friend in that sister. My reputation, dearer to me than life,
(whatever you may imagine from the step I have taken,) is suffering. A
little lenity will, even yet, in a great measure, restore it, and make
that pass for a temporary misunderstanding only, which otherwise will be
a stain as durable as life, upon a creature who has already been treated
with great unkindness, to use no harsher a word.

For your own sake therefore, for my brother's sake, by whom (I must say)
I have been thus precipitated, and for all the family's sake, aggravate
not my fault, if, on recollecting every thing, you think it one; nor by
widening the unhappy difference, expose a sister for ever--prays

Your affectionate CL. HARLOWE.

I shall take it for a very great favour to have my clothes directly sent
me, together with fifty guineas, which you will find in my escritoire
(of which I enclose the key); as also of the divinity and miscellany
classes of my little library; and, if it be thought fit, my
jewels--directed for me, to be left till called for, at Mr. Osgood's,
near Soho-square.

LETTER XI

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Mr. Lovelace, in continuation of his last letter, (No. VII.)
gives an account to his friend (pretty much to the same
effect with the lady's) of all that passed between them at
the inns, in the journey, and till their fixing at Mrs.
Sorling's; to avoid repetition, those passages in his
narrative are extracted, which will serve to embellish
her's; to open his views; or to