d
endeavoured to do him. It might not be amiss therefore, I thought, to
alarm them a little with apprehension, that the methods they are taking
with me are the very reverse of those they should take to answer the end
they design by them. And after all, what is the compliment I make Mr.
Lovelace, if I allow it to be thought that I do really prefer him to
such a man as him they terrify me with? Then, my Miss Howe [concluded I]
accuses me of a tameness which subject me to insults from my brother: I
will keep that dear friend in my eye; and for all these considerations,
try what a little of her spirit will do--sit it ever so awkwardly upon
me.

In this way of thinking, I wrote to my brother and sister. This is my
letter to him.

TREATED as I am, and, in a great measure, if not wholly, by your
instigations, Brother, you must permit me to expostulate with you upon
the occasion. It is not my intention to displease you in what I am going
to write: and yet I must deal freely with you: the occasion calls for
it.

And permit me, in the first place, to remind you, that I am your sister;
and not your servant; and that, therefore, the bitter revilings and
passionate language brought me from you, upon an occasion in which you
have no reason to prescribe to me, are neither worthy of my character to
bear, nor of yours to offer.

Put the case, that I were to marry the man you dislike: and that he were
not to make a polite or tender husband, Is that a reason for you to be
an unpolite and disobliging brother?--Why must you, Sir, anticipate my
misfortunes, were such a case to happen?--Let me tell you plainly,
that the man who could treat me as a wife, worse than you of late have
treated me as a sister, must be a barbarous man indeed.

Ask yourself, I pray you, Sir, if you would thus have treated your
sister Bella, had she thought fit to receive the addresses of the man so
much hated by you?--If not, let me caution you, my Brother, not to take
your measures by what you think will be borne, but rather by what ought
to be offered.

How would you take it, if you had a brother, who, in a like case, were
to act by you, as you do by me?--You cannot but remember what a laconic
answer you gave even to my father, who recommended to you Miss Nelly
D'Oily--You did not like her, were your words: and that was thought
sufficient.

You must needs think, that I cannot but know to whom to attribute my
disgraces, when I recollect my father's ind