think.
What a worse than moloch deity is that, which expects an offering of
reason, duty, and discretion, to be made to its shrine!

Your mother is of opinion, you say, that at last my friends will relent.
Heaven grant that they may!--But my brother and sister have such an
influence over every body, and are so determined; so pique themselves
upon subduing me, and carrying their point; that I despair that they
will. And yet, if they do not, I frankly own, I would not scruple to
throw myself upon any not disreputable protection, by which I might
avoid my present persecutions, on one hand, and not give Mr. Lovelace
advantage over me, on the other--that is to say, were there manifestly
no other way left me: for, if there were, I should think the leaving my
father's house, without his consent, one of the most inexcusable actions
I could be guilty of, were the protection to be ever so unexceptionable;
and this notwithstanding the independent fortune willed me by my
grandfather. And indeed I have often reflected with a degree of
indignation and disdain, upon the thoughts of what a low, selfish
creature that child must be, who is to be reined in only by the hopes of
what a parent can or will do for her.

But notwithstanding all this, I owe it to the sincerity of friendship to
confess, that I know not what I should have done, had your advice been
conclusive any way. Had you, my dear, been witness to my different
emotions, as I read your letter, when, in one place, you advise me of
my danger, if I am carried to my uncle's; in another, when you own you
could not bear what I bear, and would do any thing rather than marry
the man you hate; yet, in another, to represent to me my reputation
suffering in the world's eye; and the necessity I should be under to
justify my conduct, at the expense of my friends, were I to take a rash
step; in another, insinuate the dishonest figure I should be forced to
make, in so compelled a matrimony; endeavouring to cajole, fawn upon,
and play the hypocrite with a man to whom I have an aversion; who would
have reason to believe me an hypocrite, as well from my former avowals,
as from the sense he must have (if common sense he has) of his own
demerits; the necessity you think there would be for me, the more averse
(were I capable of so much dissimulation) that would be imputable to
disgraceful motives; as it would be too visible, that love, either of
person or mind, could be neither of them: then his u