er, that he assures
him, that whatever you suffer in fortune from the violence of your
relations on his account, he and Lady Sarah and Lady Betty will join to
make it up to him. And yet that the reputation of a family so splendid,
would, no doubt, in a case of such importance to the honour of both,
make them prefer a general consent.

I told him, as you yourself I knew had done, that you were extremely
averse to Mr. Solmes; and that, might you be left to your own choice,
it would be the single life. As to himself, I plainly said, That you had
great and just objections to him on the score of his careless morals:
that it was surprising, that men who gave themselves the liberties he
was said to take, should presume to think, that whenever they took it
into their heads to marry, the most virtuous and worthy of the sex
were to fall to their lot. That as to the resumption, it had been very
strongly urged by myself, and would be still further urged; though you
had been hitherto averse to that measure: that your chief reliance and
hopes were upon your cousin Morden; and that to suspend or gain time
till he arrived, was, as I believed, your principal aim.

I told him, That with regard to the mischief he threatened, neither the
act nor the menace could serve any end but theirs who persecuted you; as
it would give them a pretence for carrying into effect their compulsory
projects; and that with the approbation of all the world; since he must
not think the public would give its voice in favour of a violent young
man, of no extraordinary character as to morals, who should seek to rob
a family of eminence of a child so valuable; and who threatened, if he
could not obtain her in preference to a man chosen by themselves, that
he would avenge himself upon them all by acts of violence.

I added, That he was very much mistaken, if he thought to intimidate you
by such menaces: for that, though your disposition was all sweetness,
yet I knew not a steadier temper in the world than yours; nor one more
inflexible, (as your friends had found, and would still further find, if
they continued to give occasion for its exertion,) whenever you thought
yourself in the right; and that you were ungenerously dealt with in
matters of too much moment to be indifferent about. Miss Clarissa
Harlowe, Mr. Lovelace, let me tell you, said I, timid as her foresight
and prudence may make her in some cases, where she apprehends dangers to
those she loves, is abov