have always found the Harlowes to be, it must
be by the mediation of so cool and so moderate a gentleman as yourself.

And so, with the highest civilities on both sides, we parted. But for
the private satisfaction of so good a man, I left him out of doubt that
we were man and wife, though I did not directly aver it.

LETTER VI

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
SUNDAY NIGHT.

This Captain Tomlinson is one of the happiest as well as one of the best
men in the world. What would I give to stand as high in my beloved's
opinion as he does! but yet I am as good a man as he, were I to tell my
own story, and have equal credit given to it. But the devil should have
had him before I had seen him on the account he came upon, had I thought
I should not have answered my principal end in it. I hinted to thee in
my last what that was.

But to the particulars of the conference between my fair-one and me, on
her hasty messages; which I was loth to come to, because she has had an
half triumph over me in it.

After I had attended the Captain down to the very passage, I returned to
the dining-room, and put on a joyful air, on my beloved's entrance into
it--O my dearest creature, said I, let me congratulate you on a prospect
so agreeable to your wishes! And I snatched her hand, and smothered it
with kisses.

I was going on; when interrupting me, You see, Mr. Lovelace, said she,
how you have embarrassed yourself by your obliquities! You see, that you
have not been able to return a direct answer to a plain and honest
question, though upon it depends all the happiness, on the prospect of
which you congratulate me!

You know, my best love, what my prudent, and I will say, my kind motives
were, for giving out that we were married. You see that I have taken no
advantage of it; and that no inconvenience has followed it. You see that
your uncle wants only to be assured from ourselves that it is so--

Not another word on this subject, Mr. Lovelace. I will not only risk,
but I will forfeit, the reconciliation so near my heart, rather than I
will go on to countenance a story so untrue!

My dearest soul--Would you have me appear--

I would have you appear, Sir, as you are! I am resolved that I will
appear to my uncle's friend, and to my uncle, as I am.

For one week, my dearest life! cannot you for one week--only till the
settlements--

Not for one hour, with my own consent. You don't know, Sir, how much I
have been