er should have denied you: for
were you to keep your word as to seeing nobody but whom we please, yet
can you write to somebody else, and receive letters from him. This we
too well know you can, and have done--more is the shame and the pity!

You offer to live single, Miss--we wished you married: but because you
may not have the man your heart is set upon, why, truly, you will have
nobody we shall recommend: and as we know, that somehow or other you
correspond with him, or at least did as long as you could; and as he
defies us all, and would not dare to do so, if he were not sure of you
in spite of us all, (which is not a little vexatious to us, you must
think,) we are resolved to frustrate him, and triumph over him, rather
than that he should triumph over us: that's one word for all. So expect
not any advocateship from me: I will not plead for you; and that's
enough. From

Your displeased uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.

P.S. For the rest I refer to my brother Antony.

***

TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ. SATURDAY, MARCH 11.

HONOURED SIR,

As you have thought fit to favour Mr. Solmes with your particular
recommendation, and was very earnest in his behalf, ranking him (as
you told me, upon introducing him to me) among your select friends; and
expecting my regards to him accordingly; I beg your patience, while
I offer a few things, out of many that I could offer, to your serious
consideration, on occasion of his address to me, if I am to use that
word.

I am charged with prepossession in another person's favour. You will be
pleased, Sir, to remember, that till my brother returned from Scotland,
that other person was not absolutely discouraged, nor was I forbid to
receive his visits. I believe it will not be pretended, that in birth,
education, or personal endowments, a comparison can be made between the
two. And only let me ask you, Sir, if the one would have been thought of
for me, had he not made such offers, as, upon my word, I think, I ought
not in justice to accept of, nor he to propose: offers, which if he had
not made, I dare say, my papa would not have required them of him.

But the one, it seems, has many faults:--Is the other faultless?--The
principal thing objected to Mr. Lovelace (and a very inexcusable one) is
that he is immoral in his loves--Is not the other in his hatreds?--Nay,
as I may say, in his loves too (the object only differing) if the love
of money be the root of all evil.

But, Sir, if I am prepos