d delivered himself upon this
subject with equal freedom and concern.

There are, my dear Miss Howe, a multitude of punctilios and decorums,
which a young creature must dispense with, who, in a situation like
mine, makes a man the intimate attendant of her person. I could now,
I think, give twenty reasons stronger than any I have heretofore
mentioned, why women of the least delicacy should never think of
incurring the danger and the disgrace of taking the step I have been
drawn in to take, but with horror and aversion; and why they should look
upon the man who should tempt them to it, as the vilest and most selfish
of seducers.

*****

Before five o'clock (Tuesday morning) the maidservant came up to tell me
that my brother was ready, and that breakfast also waited for me in
the parlour. I went down with a heart as heavy as my eyes, and received
great acknowledgements and compliments from him on being so soon
dressed, and ready (as he interpreted it) to continue on our journey.

He had the thought which I had not (for what had I to with thinking, who
had it not when I stood most in need of it?) to purchase for me a velvet
hood, and a short cloke, trimmed with silver, without saying any thing
to me. He must reward himself, the artful encroacher said, before the
landlady and her maids and niece, for his forethought; and would salute
his pretty sullen sister!--He took his reward; and, as he said before,
a tear with it. While he assured me, still before them [a vile wretch!]
that I had nothing to fear from meeting with parents who so dearly loved
me.--

How could I be complaisant, my dear, to such a man as this?

When we had got in the chariot, and it began to move, he asked me,
whether I had any objection to go to Lord M.'s Hertfordshire seat? His
Lordship, he said, was at his Berkshire one.

I told him, I chose not to go, as yet, to any of his relations; for that
would indicate a plain defiance to my own. My choice was, to go to a
private lodging, and for him to be at a distance from me: at least, till
I heard how things were taken by my friends: for that, although I had
but little hopes of a reconciliation as it was; yet if they knew I was
in his protection, or in that of any of his friends, (which would be
looked upon as the same thing,) there would not be room for any hopes at
all.

I should govern him as I pleased, he solemnly assured me, in every
thing. But he still thought London was the best place for