hat I secretly favour the address of a vile rake, (a character
which all the sex, he is pleased to say, virtuous and vicious, are but
too fond of!) to exert my authority over you: and that this I may the
less scrupulously do, as you have owned [the old string!] that your
heart is free.'

Unworthy reflection in my mother's case, surely, this of our sex's
valuing a libertine; since she made choice of my father in preference
to several suitors of equal fortune, because they were of inferior
reputation for morals!

'Your father, added she, at his going out, told me what he expected
from me, in case I found out that I had not the requisite influence upon
you--It was this--That I should directly separate myself from you, and
leave you singly to take the consequence of your double disobedience--I
therefore entreat you, my dear Clarissa, concluded she, and that in the
most earnest and condescending manner, to signify to your father, on his
return, your ready obedience; and this as well for my sake as your own.'

Affected by my mother's goodness to me, and by that part of her argument
which related to her own peace, and to the suspicions they had of her
secretly inclining to prefer the man so hated by them, to the man so
much my aversion, I could not but wish it were possible for me to obey,
I therefore paused, hesitated, considered, and was silent for some time.
I could see, that my mother hoped that the result of this hesitation
would be favourable to her arguments. But then recollecting, that all
was owing to the instigations of a brother and sister, wholly actuated
by selfish and envious views; that I had not deserved the treatment I
had of late met with; that my disgrace was already become the public
talk; that the man was Mr. Solmes; and that my aversion to him was too
generally known, to make my compliance either creditable to myself or
to them: that it would give my brother and sister a triumph over me,
and over Mr. Lovelace, which they would not fail to glory in; and which,
although it concerned me but little to regard on his account, yet might
be attended with fatal mischiefs--And then Mr. Solmes's
disagreeable person; his still more disagreeable manners; his low
understanding--Understanding! the glory of a man, so little to be
dispensed with in the head and director of a family, in order to
preserve to him that respect which a good wife (and that for the
justification of her own choice) should pay him herself, and w