ning myself to
so great a profligate, now I know him to be so? Do you think your
Clarissa Harlowe so lost, so sunk, at least, as that she could, for the
sake of patching up, in the world's eye, a broken reputation, meanly
appear indebted to the generosity, or perhaps compassion, of a man, who
has, by means so inhuman, robbed her of it? Indeed, my dear, I should
not think my penitence for the rash step I took, any thing better than a
specious delusion, if I had not got above the least wish to have Mr.
Lovelace for my husband.

'Yes, I warrant, I must creep to the violator, and be thankful to him for
doing me poor justice!

'Do you not already see me (pursuing the advice you give) with a downcast
eye, appear before his friends, and before my own, (supposing the latter
would at last condescend to own me,) divested of that noble confidence
which arises from a mind unconscious of having deserved reproach?

'Do you not see me creep about mine own house, preferring all my honest
maidens to myself--as if afraid, too, to open my lips, either by way of
reproof or admonition, lest their bolder eyes should bid me look inward,
and not expect perfection from them?

'And shall I entitle the wretch to upbraid me with his generosity, and
his pity; and perhaps to reproach me for having been capable of forgiving
crimes of such a nature?

'I once indeed hoped, little thinking him so premeditatedly vile a man,
that I might have the happiness to reclaim him: I vainly believed that he
loved me well enough to suffer my advice for his good, and the example I
humbly presumed I should be enabled to set him, to have weight with him;
and the rather, as he had no mean opinion of my morals and understanding:
But now what hope is there left for this my prime hope?--Were I to marry
him, what a figure should I make, preaching virtue and morality to a man
whom I had trusted with opportunities to seduce me from all my own
duties!--And then, supposing I were to have children by such a husband,
must it not, think you, cut a thoughtful person to the heart; to look
round upon her little family, and think she had given them a father
destined, without a miracle, to perdition; and whose immoralities,
propagated among them by his vile example, might, too probably, bring
down a curse upon them? And, after all, who knows but that my own sinful
compliances with a man, who might think himself entitled to my obedience,
might taint my own morals, and make me, i