cy, and that all his words and actions should tend to the one
principal point; nevertheless, if I suspected art or delay, founded upon
his doubts of my love, I would either condescend to clear up is doubts
or renounce him for ever.

And in my last case, I, your Anna Howe, would exert myself, and either
find you a private refuge, or resolve to share fortunes with you.

What a wretch! to be so easily answered by your reference to the arrival
of your cousin Morden! But I am afraid that you was too scrupulous: for
did he not resent that reference?

Could we have his account of the matter, I fancy, my dear, I should
think you over nice, over delicate.* Had you laid hold of his
acknowledged explicitness, he would have been as much in your power, as
now you seem to be in his: you wanted not to be told, that the person
who had been tricked into such a step as you had taken, must of
necessity submit to many mortifications.

* The reader who has seen his account, which Miss Howe could not have
seen, when she wrote thus, will observe that it was not possible for a
person of her true delicacy of mind to act otherwise than she did, to a
man so cruelly and so insolently artful.

But were it to me, a girl of spirit as I am thought to be, I do assure
you, I would, in a quarter of an hour (all the time I would allow to
punctilio in such a case as yours) know what he drives at: since either
he must mean well or ill; if ill, the sooner you know it, the better. If
well, whose modesty is it he distresses, but that of his own wife?

And methinks you should endeavour to avoid all exasperating
recriminations, as to what you have heard of his failure in morals;
especially while you are so happy as not to have occasion to speak of
them by experience.

I grant that it gives a worthy mind some satisfaction in having borne
its testimony against the immoralities of a bad one. But that correction
which is unseasonably given, is more likely either to harden or make an
hypocrite, than to reclaim.

I am pleased, however, as well as you, with his making light of your
brother's wise project.--Poor creature! and must Master Jemmy Harlowe,
with his half-wit, pretend to plot, and contrive mischief, yet rail at
Lovelace for the same things?--A witty villain deserves hanging at once
(and without ceremony, if you please): but a half-witted one deserves
broken bones first, and hanging afterwards. I think Lovelace has given
his character in a fe