ately permitted to be under my own direction, hardly daring to speak to
me; my own servant discarded with high marks of undeserved suspicion and
displeasure, and my sister's maid set over me.

The matter may be too far pushed.--Indeed it may.--And then, perhaps,
every one will be sorry for their parts in it.

May I be permitted to mention an expedient?--'If I am to be
watched, banished, and confined; suppose, Sir, it were to be at your
house?'--Then the neighbouring gentry will the less wonder, that the
person of whom they used to think so favourably, appear not at church
here; and that she received not their visits.

I hope there can be no objection to this. You used to love to have
me with you, Sir, when all went happily with me: And will you not now
permit me, in my troubles, the favour of your house, till all this
displeasure is overblown?--Upon my word, Sir, I will not stir out of
doors, if you require the contrary of me: nor will I see any body, but
whom you will allow me to see; provided Mr. Solmes be not brought to
persecute me there.

Procure, then, this favour for me; if you cannot procure the still
greater, that of a happy reconciliation (which nevertheless I presume to
hope for, if you will be so good as to plead for me); and you will then
add to those favours and to that indulgence, which have bound me, and
will for ever bind me to be

Your dutiful and obliged niece, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

THE ANSWER

SUNDAY NIGHT.

MY DEAR NIECE,

It grieves me to be forced to deny you any thing you ask. Yet it must be
so; for unless you can bring your mind to oblige us in this one point,
in which our promises and honour were engaged before we believed there
could be so sturdy an opposition, you must never expect to be what you
have been to us all.

In short, Niece, we are in an embattled phalanx. Your reading makes you
a stranger to nothing but what you should be most acquainted with. So
you will see by that expression, that we are not to be pierced by your
persuasions, and invincible persistence. We have agreed all to be
moved, or none; and not to comply without one another. So you know your
destiny; and have nothing to do but to yield to it.

Let me tell you, the virtue of obedience lies not in obliging when you
can be obliged again. But give up an inclination, and there is some
merit in that.

As to your expedient; you shall not come to my house, Miss Clary; though
this is a prayer I little thought I ev