dgment.--But a strict observance
of your filial duty, my dearest Cousin, and the precepts of so prudent a
mother as you have the happiness to have (enforced by so sad an example
in your own family as I have set) will, I make no doubt, with the Divine
assistance, be your guard and security.'

The posthumous letter to Miss Howe is extremely tender and affectionate.
She pathetically calls upon her 'to rejoice that all her Clarissa's
troubles are now at an end; that the state of temptation and trial, of
doubt and uncertainty, is now over with her; and that she has happily
escaped the snares that were laid for her soul; the rather to rejoice,
as that her misfortunes were of such a nature, that it was impossible
she could be tolerably happy in this life.'

She 'thankfully acknowledges the favours she had received from Mrs. Howe
and Mr. Hickman; and expresses her concern for the trouble she has
occasioned to the former, as well as to her; and prays that all the
earthly blessings they used to wish to each other, may singly devolve
upon her.'

She beseeches her, 'that she will not suspend the day which shall supply
to herself the friend she will have lost in her, and give to herself a
still nearer and dearer relation.'

She tells her, 'That her choice (a choice made with the approbation of
all her friends) has fallen upon a sincere, an honest, a virtuous, and,
what is more than all, a pious man; a man who, although he admires her
person, is still more in love with the graces of her mind. And as those
graces are improvable with every added year of life, which will impair
the transitory ones of person, what a firm basis, infers she, has Mr.
Hickman chosen to build his love upon!'

She prays, 'That God will bless them together; and that the remembrance
of her, and of what she has suffered, may not interrupt their mutual
happiness; she desires them to think of nothing but what she now is; and
that a time will come when they shall meet again, never to be divided.

'To the Divine protection, mean time, she commits her; and charges her,
by the love that has always subsisted between them, that she will not
mourn too heavily for her; and again calls upon her, after a gentle tear,
which she will allow her to let fall in memory of their uninterrupted
friendship, to rejoice that she is so early released; and that she is
purified by her sufferings, and is made, as she assuredly trusts, by
God's goodness, eternally happy.'

The p