n their hearing, how Miss Clarissa Harlowe did?

He heard, he said, you were not so well as he wished you to be, and as
you deserved to be.

O Mr. Lovelace, said she, what have you to answer for on that young
lady's account, if all be true that I have heard.

I have a great deal to answer for, said the unblushing villain: but that
dear lady has so many excellencies, and so much delicacy, that little
sins are great ones in her eye.

Little sins! replied Miss D'Oily: Mr. Lovelace's character is so well
known, that nobody believes he can commit little sins.

You are very good to me, Miss D'Oily.

Indeed I am not.

Then I am the only person to whom you are not very good: and so I am the
less obliged to you.

He turned, with an unconcerned air, to Miss Playford, and made her some
genteel compliments. I believe you know her not. She visits his cousins
Montague. Indeed he had something in his specious manner to say to every
body: and this too soon quieted the disgust each person had at his
entrance.

I still kept my seat, and he either saw me not, or would not yet see me;
and addressing himself to my mother, taking her unwilling hand, with an
air of high assurance, I am glad to see you here, Madam, I hope Miss Howe
is well. I have reason to complain greatly of her: but hope to owe to
her the highest obligation that can be laid on man.

My daughter, Sir, is accustomed to be too warm and too zealous in her
friendships for either my tranquility or her own.

There had indeed been some late occasion given for mutual displeasure
between my mother and me: but I think she might have spared this to him;
though nobody heard it, I believe, but the person to whom it was spoken,
and the lady who told it me; for my mother spoke it low.

We are not wholly, Madam, to live for ourselves, said the vile hypocrite:
it is not every one who had a soul capable of friendship: and what a
heart must that be, which can be insensible to the interests of a
suffering friend?

This sentiment from Mr. Lovelace's mouth! said my mother--forgive me,
Sir; but you can have no end, surely, in endeavouring to make me think as
well of you as some innocent creatures have thought of you to their cost.

She would have flung from him. But, detaining her hand--Less severe,
dear Madam, said he, be less severe in this place, I beseech you. You
will allow, that a very faulty person may see his errors; and when he
does, and owns them, and repents, shou