letter than in the letters of your pert advocate: and my
father is pleased to give me leave to write; but only these words for
him, and no more: 'That he withdraws the curse he laid upon you, at the
first hearing of your wicked flight, so far as it is in his power to do
it; and hopes that your present punishment may be all that you will meet
with. For the rest, he will never own you, nor forgive you; and grieves
he has such a daughter in the world.'

All this, and more you have deserved from him, and from all of us: But
what have you done to this abandoned libertine, to deserve what you have
met with at his hands?--I fear, I fear, Sister!--But no more!--A blessed
four months' work have you made of it.

My brother is now at Edinburgh, sent thither by my father, [though he
knows not this to be the motive,] that he may not meet your triumphant
deluder.

We are told he would be glad to marry you: But why, then, did he abandon
you? He had kept you till he was tired of you, no question; and it is
not likely he would wish to have you but upon the terms you have already
without all doubt been his.

You ought to advise your friend Miss Howe to concern herself less in your
matters than she does, except she could do it with more decency. She has
written three letters to me: very insolent ones. Your favourer, poor
Mrs. Norton, thinks you know nothing of the pert creature's writing. I
hope you don't. But then the more impertinent the writer. But,
believing the fond woman, I sat down the more readily to answer your
letter; and I write with less severity, I can tell you, than otherwise I
should have done, if I had answered it all.

Monday last was your birth-day. Think, poor ungrateful wretch, as you
are! how we all used to keep it; and you will not wonder to be told, that
we ran away from one another that day. But God give you true penitence,
if you have it not already! and it will be true, if it be equal to the
shame and the sorrow you have given us all.

Your afflicted sister,
ARABELLA HARLOWE.

Your cousin Morden is every day expected in England. He, as well as
others of the family, when he comes to hear what a blessed piece of
work you have made of it, will wish you never had had a being.

LETTER LXI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SUNDAY, JULY 30.

You have given me great pleasure, my dearest friend, by your approbation
of my reasonings, and of my resolution founded upon them, nev