re on this subject.

What a dreadful thing indeed was it for my dearest tender young lady to
be arrested in the streets of London!--How does my heart go over again
and again for you, what your's must have suffered at that time!--Yet
this, to such a mind as your's, must be light, compared to what you had
suffered before.

O my dearest Miss Clary, how shall we know what to pray for, when we
pray, but that God's will may be done, and that we may be resigned to it!
--When at nine years old, and afterwards at eleven, you had a dangerous
fever, how incessantly did we grieve, and pray, and put up our vows to
the Throne of Grace, for your recovery!--For all our lives were bound up
in your life--yet now, my dear, as it has proved, [especially if we are
soon to lose you,] what a much more desirable event, both for you and for
us, would it have been, had we then lost you!

A sad thing to say! But as it is in pure love to you that I say it, and
in full conviction that we are not always fit to be our own choosers, I
hope it may be excusable; and the rather, as the same reflection will
naturally lead both you and me to acquiesce under the
dispensation; since we are assured that nothing happens by chance; and
the greatest good may, for aught we know, be produced from the heaviest
evils.

I am glad you are with such honest people; and that you have all your
effects restored. How dreadfully have you been used, that one should be
glad of such a poor piece of justice as that!

Your talent at moving the passions is always hinted at; and this Betty of
your sister's never comes near me that she is not full of it. But, as
you say, whom has it moved, that you wished to move? Yet, were it not
for this unhappy notion, I am sure your mother would relent. Forgive me,
my dear Miss Clary; for I must try one way to be convinced if my opinion
be not just. But I will not tell you what that is, unless it succeeds.
I will try, in pure duty and love to them, as to you.

May Heaven be your support in all your trials, is the constant prayer, my
dearest young lady, of

Your ever affectionate friend and servant,
JUDITH NORTON.

LETTER LVII

MRS. NORTON, TO MRS. HARLOWE
FRIDAY, JULY 28.

HONOURED MADAM,

Being forbid (without leave) to send you any thing I might happen to
receive from my beloved Miss Clary, and so ill, that I cannot attend
you to ask your leave, I give you this trouble, to let you know that I
have received a letter