e all these things as they will, Lord M. never in his life received
so handsome a letter as this from his nephew

LOVELACE.

***

[The Lady, after having given to Miss Howe on the particulars contained
in Mr. Lovelace's last letter, thus expresses herself:]

A principal consolation arising from these favourable appearances, is,
that I, who have now but one only friend, shall most probably, and if it
be not my own fault, have as many new ones as there are persons in Mr.
Lovelace's family; and this whether Mr. Lovelace treat me kindly or not.
And who knows, but that, by degrees, those new friends, by their rank and
merit, may have weight enough to get me restored to the favour of my
relations? till which can be effected, I shall not be tolerably easy.
Happy I never expect to be. Mr. Lovelace's mind and mine are vastly
different; different in essentials.

But as matters are at present circumstanced, I pray you, my dear friend,
to keep to yourself every thing that might bring discredit to him, if
revealed.--Better any body expose a man than a wife, if I am to be his;
and what is said by you will be thought to come from me.

It shall be my constant prayer, that all the felicities which this world
can afford may be your's: and that the Almighty will never suffer you nor
your's, to the remotest posterity, to want such a friend as my Anna Howe
has been to

Her
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER LIV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

And now, that my beloved seems secure in my net, for my project upon the
vixen Miss Howe, and upon her mother: in which the officious prancer
Hickman is to come in for a dash.

But why upon her mother, methinks thou askest, who, unknown to herself,
has only acted, by the impulse, through thy agent Joseph Leman, upon the
folly of old Tony the uncle?

No matter for that: she believes she acts upon her own judgment: and
deserves to be punished for pretending to judgment, when she has none.--
Every living soul, but myself, I can tell thee, shall be punished, that
treats either cruelly or disrespectfully so adored a lady.--What a
plague! is it not enough that she is teased and tormented in person by
me?

I have already broken the matter to our three confederates; as a
supposed, not a resolved-on case indeed. And yet they know, that with
me, in a piece of mischief, execution, with its swiftest feel, is seldom
three paces behind projection, which hardly ever limps neither.

MOW