ffectionate
JUDITH NORTON.

LETTER VI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
THURSDAY, AUG. 27.

What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
Antony. Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor
creature, who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before
tottering on the brink of the grave. But my friends may possibly be
better justified than the reporters--For who knows what they may have
heard?

You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
You have spoken quite out. Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
happen. But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain. I shall hear all, when
it is thought proper that I should. Mean time, let me say, for your
satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th
of April last.

You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
occasion shall offer. My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she
is but too ready to censure heavily. From these you will be able to
collect a great deal of my story. But for what is previous to these
papers, and which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from
Mr. Lovelace, you must have patience; for at present I have neither head
nor heart for such subjects. The papers I send you with this will be
those mentioned in the margin.* You must restore them to me as soon as
perused; and upon your honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence
you have from me, but by my previous consent.

* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
off my father's malediction . . . . . . dated July 21.
2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . . dated July 2