hy should not I in my heart? Not so much of a devil as
that comes to neither. Such villainous intentions would have shown
themselves before now if I had them.--Lord help them!--

She then puts her friend upon urging for settlements, license, and so
forth.--'No room for delicacy now,' she says; and tells her what she
shall say, 'to bring all forward from me.' Is it not as clear to thee,
Jack, as it is to me, that I should have carried my point long ago, but
for this vixen?--She reproaches her for having MODESTY'D away, as she
calls it, more than one opportunity, that she ought not to have slipt.--
Thus thou seest, that the noblest of the sex mean nothing in the world
by their shyness and distance, but to pound the poor fellow they dislike
not, when he comes into their purlieus.

Though 'tricked into this man's power,' she tells her, she is 'not meanly
subjugated to it.' There are hopes of my reformation, it seems, 'from my
reverence for her; since before her I never had any reverence for what
was good!' I am 'a great, a specious deceiver.' I thank her for this,
however. A good moral use, she says, may be made of my 'having prevailed
upon her to swerve.' I am glad that any good may flow from my actions.

Annexed to this letter is a paper the most saucy that ever was written of
a mother by a daughter. There are in it such free reflections upon
widows and bachelors, that I cannot but wonder how Miss Howe came by her
learning. Sir George Colmar, I can tell thee, was a greater fool than
thy friend, if she had it all for nothing.

The contents of this paper acquaint Miss Harlowe, that her uncle Antony
has been making proposals of marriage to her mother.

The old fellow's heart ought to be a tough one, if he succeed; or she who
broke that of a much worthier man, the late Mr. Howe, will soon get rid
of him.

But be this as it may, the stupid family is made more irreconcilable than
ever to their goddess-daughter for old Antony's thoughts of marrying: so
I am more secure of her than ever. And yet I believe at last, that my
tender heart will be moved in her favour. For I did not wish that she
should have nothing but persecution and distress.--But why loves she the
brutes, as Miss Howe justly calls them, so much; me so little?

I have still more unpardonable transcripts from other letters.

LETTER XLV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

The next letter is of such a nature, that, I dare say, these proud