ill tell you
(without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.

I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the
throat of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine
as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others. But then I took
care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform. A modest ear
should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony,
if I had not intended it. Young ladies are generally ready enough to
believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a
strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed
needful to put the question whether in your address you mean a wife. But
when once a man make a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a
woman is well warranted to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a
deceiver; and is always sure to have the world on her side.

Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly--

I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say. You will
excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
answer the end you drive at.

I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
ingratitude and baseness to her. Nay, I will say still farther, that I
am so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any
manner a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low
attempt to excuse myself--so low and so mean, that it would doubly
condemn me. And if you can say worse, speak it.

He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times. And my Lord
said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.

Lovel. I do, Sir; and what can I say more? And what farther, in your
opinion, can be done?

Col. Done! Sir? Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not
tell you that reparation follows repentance. And I hope you make no
scruple of justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.

I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and h