to communicate them;) to which I dare appeal with
the same truth and fervour as he did, who says--O that one would hear me!
and that mine adversary had written a book!--Surely, I would take it upon
my shoulders, and bind it to me as a crown! for I covered not my
transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom.

There is one way which may be fallen upon to induce Mr. Belford to
communicate these letters; since he seems to have (and declares he always
had) a sincere abhorrence of his friend's baseness to me: but that,
you'll say, when you hear it, is a strange one. Nevertheless, I am very
earnest upon it at present.

It is no other than this:

I think to make Mr. Belford the executor of my last will: [don't be
surprised:] and with this view I permit his visits with the less scruple:
and every time I see him, from his concern for me, am more and more
inclined to do so. If I hold in the same mind, and if he accept the
trust, and will communicate the materials in his power, those, joined
with what you can furnish, will answer the whole end.

I know you will start at my notion of such an executor; but pray, my
dear, consider, in my present circumstances, what I can do better, as I
am empowered to make a will, and have considerable matters in my own
disposal.

Your mother, I am sure, would not consent that you should take this
office upon you. It might subject Mr. Hickman to the insults of that
violent man. Mrs. Norton cannot, for several reasons respecting herself.
My brother looks upon what I ought to have as his right. My uncle
Harlowe is already one of my trustees (as my cousin Morden is the other)
for the estate my grandfather left me: but you see I could not get from
my own family the few guineas I left behind me at Harlowe-place; and my
uncle Antony once threatened to have my grandfather's will controverted.
My father!--To be sure, my dear, I could not expect that my father would
do all I wish should be done: and a will to be executed by a father for a
daughter, (parts of it, perhaps, absolutely against his own judgment,)
carries somewhat daring and prescriptive in the very word.

If indeed my cousin Morden were to come in time, and would undertake this
trust--but even him it might subject to hazards; and the more, as he is a
man of great spirit; and as the other man (of as great) looks upon me
(unprotected as I have long been) as his property.

Now Mr. Belford, as I have already mentioned, knows