ote a sharp letter to you; which I
find you did not receive.

What a fatality, my dear, has appeared in your case, from the very
beginning till this hour! Had my mother permitted----

But can I blame her; when you have a father and mother living, who have
so much to answer for?--So much!--as no father and mother, considering
the child they have driven, persecuted, exposed, renounced, ever had to
answer for!

But again I must execrate the abandoned villain--yet, as I said before,
all words are poor, and beneath the occasion.

But see we not, in the horrid perjuries and treachery of this man, what
rakes and libertines will do, when they get a young creature into their
power! It is probable that he might have the intolerable presumption to
hope an easier conquest: but, when your unexampled vigilance and exalted
virtue made potions, and rapes, and the utmost violences, necessary to
the attainment of his detestable end, we see that he never boggled at
them. I have no doubt that the same or equal wickedness would be oftener
committed by men of his villanous cast, if the folly and credulity of the
poor inconsiderates who throw themselves into their hands, did not give
them an easier triumph.

With what comfort must those parents reflect upon these things who have
happily disposed of their daughters in marriage to a virtuous man! And
how happy the young women who find themselves safe in a worthy
protection!--If such a person as Miss Clarissa Harlowe could not escape,
who can be secure?--Since, though every rake is not a LOVELACE, neither
is every woman a CLARISSA: and his attempts were but proportioned to your
resistance and vigilance.

My mother has commanded me to let you know her thoughts upon the whole of
your sad story. I will do it in another letter; and send it to you with
this, by a special messenger.

But, for the future, if you approve of it, I will send my letters by the
usual hand, (Collins's,) to be left at the Saracen's Head, on Snow-hill:
whither you may send your's, (as we both used to do, to Wilson's,) except
such as we shall think fit to transmit by the post: which I am afraid,
after my next, must be directed to Mr. Hickman, as before: since my
mother is fixing a condition to our correspondence, which, I doubt, you
will not comply with, though I wish you would. This condition I shall
acquaint you with by-and-by.

Mean time, begging excuse for all the harsh things in my last, of which
your sweet