se
have upon a heart so appreciative as mine!--Did I think I should ever
have a father's curse to deprecate? And yet, only that the temporary
part of it is so terribly fulfilled, or I should be as earnest for its
recall, for my father's sake, as for my own!

You must not be angry with me that I wrote not to you before. You are
very right and very kind to say you are sure I love you. Indeed I do.
And what a generosity, [so like yourself!] is there in your praise, to
attribute to me more than I merit, in order to raise an emulation to me
to deserve your praises!--you tell me what you expect from me in the
calamities I am called upon to bear. May I behave answerably!

I can a little account to myself for my silence to you, my kind, my dear
maternal friend! How equally sweetly and politely do you express
yourself on this occasion! I was very desirous, for your sake, as well
as for my own, that you should have it to say that we did not correspond:
had they thought we did, every word you could have dropt in my favour
would have been rejected; and my mother would have been forbid to see
you, or pay any regard to what you should say.

Then I had sometimes better and sometimes worse prospects before me. My
worst would only have troubled you to know: my better made me frequently
hope, that, by the next post, or the next, and so on for weeks, I should
have the best news to impart to you that then could happen: cold as the
wretch had made my heart to that best.--For how could I think to write to
you, with a confession that I was not married, yet lived in the house
(for I could not help it) with such a man?--Who likewise had given it out
to several, that we were actually married, although with restrictions
that depended on the reconciliation with my friends? And to disguise the
truth, or be guilty of a falsehood, either direct or equivocal, that was
what you had never taught me.

But I might have written to you for advice, in my precarious situation,
perhaps you will think. But, indeed, my dear Mrs. Norton, I was not lost
for want of advice. And this will appear clear to you from what I have
already hinted, were I to explain myself no further:--For what need had
the cruel spoiler to have recourse to unprecedented arts--I will speak
out plainer still, (but you must not at present report it,) to stupifying
potions, and to the most brutal and outrageous force, had I been wanting
in my duty?

A few words more upon this gr