ownsend order matters. I wish
she could have been with you sooner. But I have lost no time in engaging
her, as you will suppose. I refer to her, what I have further to say and
advise. So shall conclude with my prayers, that Heaven will direct and
protect my dearest creature, and make your future days happy!

ANNA HOWE.

And now, Jack, I will suppose that thou hast read this cursed letter.
Allow me to make a few observations upon some of its contents.

It is strange to Miss Howe, that having got her friend at such a shocking
advantage, &c. And it is strange to me, too. If ever I have such
another opportunity given to me, the cause of both our wonder, I believe,
will cease.

So thou seest Tomlinson is further detected.--No such person as Mrs.
Fretchville.--May lightning from Heaven--O Lord, O Lord, O Lord!--What a
horrid vixen is this!--My gang, my remorseless gang, too, is brought in--
and thou wilt plead for these girls again; wilt thou? heaven be praised,
she says, that her friend is out of danger--Miss Howe should be sure of
that, and that she herself is safe.--But for this termagant, (as I often
said,) I must surely have made a better hand of it.--

New stories of me, Jack!--What can they be?--I have not found that my
generosity to my Rose-bud ever did me due credit with this pair of
friends. Very hard, Belford, that credits cannot be set against debits,
and a balance struck in a rake's favour, as well as in that of every
common man!--But he, from whom no good is expected, is not allowed the
merit of the good he does.

I ought to have been a little more attentive to character than I have
been. For, notwithstanding that the measures of right and wrong are said
to be so manifest, let me tell thee, that character biases and runs away
with all mankind. Let a man or woman once establish themselves in the
world's opinion, and all that either of them do will be sanctified. Nay,
in the very courts of justice, does not character acquit or condemn as
often as facts, and sometimes even in spite of facts?--Yet, [impolitic
that I have been and am!] to be so careless of mine!--And now, I doubt,
it is irretrievable.--But to leave moralizing.

Thou, Jack, knowest almost all my enterprises worth remembering. Can
this particular story, which this girl hints at, be that of Lucy Villars?
--Or can she have heard of my intrigue with the pretty gipsey, who met me
in Norwood, and of the trap I caught her cruel husband