pleasure in mortifying a
man, who the less needed to be mortified, as he before looked up to you
with a diffidence in his own merits too great to permit him to speak
half of his mind to you. Be pleased but to return to the subject we were
upon; and at another time I will gladly embrace correction from the only
lips in the world so qualified to give it.

You talk of reformation sometimes, Mr. Lovelace, and in so talking,
acknowledge errors. But I see you can very ill bear the reproof, for
which perhaps you are not solicitous to avoid giving occasion. Far be it
from me to take delight in finding fault; I should be glad for both our
sakes, since my situation is what it is, that I could do nothing but
praise you. But failures which affect a mind that need not be very
delicate to be affected by them, are too grating to be passed over in
silence by a person who wises to be though in earnest in her own duties.

I admire your delicacy, Madam, again interrupted he. Although I suffer
by it, yet would I not have it otherwise: indeed I would not, when I
consider of it. It is an angelic delicacy, which sets you above all our
sex, and even above your own. It is natural to you, Madam; so you may
think it extraordinary: but there is nothing like it on earth, said the
flatterer--What company has he kept!

But let us return to the former subject--You were so good as to ask me
what I would advise you to do: I want but to make you easy; I want but
to see you fixed to your liking: your faithful Hannah with you; your
reconciliation with those to whom you wish to be reconciled, set
on foot, and in a train. And now let me mention to you different
expedients; in hopes that some one of them may be acceptable to you.

'I will go to Mrs. Howe, or to Miss Howe, or to whomsoever you would
have me to go, and endeavour to prevail upon them to receive you.*

* The reader, perhaps, need not be reminded that he had taken care from
the first (see Vol. I. Letter XXXI.) to deprive her of any protection
from Mrs. Howe. See in his next letter, a repeated account of the same
artifices, and his exultations upon his inventions to impose upon the
two such watchful ladies as Clarissa and Miss Howe.

'Do you incline to go to Florence to your cousin Morden? I will furnish
you with an opportunity of going thither, either by sea to Leghorn,
or by land through France. Perhaps I may be able to procure one of
the ladies of my family to attend you. Either Ch