wn arduous trials, is all I have
room to add; and make you as happy, as you think to be

Your own ANNA HOWE.

LETTER XXXI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY NIGHT, APRIL 2.

I have many new particulars to acquaint you with, that shew a great
change in the behaviour of my friends as I find we have. I will give
these particulars to you as they offered.

All the family was at church in the morning. They brought good Dr. Lewen
with them, in pursuance of a previous invitation. And the doctor sent up
to desire my permission to attend me in my own apartment.

You may believe it was easily granted.

So the doctor came up.

We had a conversation of near an hour before dinner: but, to my
surprise, he waved every thing that would have led me to the subject I
supposed he wanted to talk about. At last, I asked him, if it were not
thought strange I should be so long absent from church? He made me some
handsome compliments upon it: but said, for his part, he had ever made
it a rule to avoid interfering in the private concerns of families,
unless desired to do so.

I was prodigiously disappointed; but supposing that he was thought too
just a man to be made a judge of in this cause; I led no more to it:
nor, when he was called down to dinner, did he take the least notice of
leaving me behind him there.

But this was not the first time since my confinement that I thought it a
hardship not to dine below. And when I parted with him on the stairs, a
tear would burst its way; and he hurried down; his own good-natured eyes
glistening; for he saw it.--Nor trusted he his voice, lest the accent I
suppose should have discovered his concern; departing in silence; though
with his usual graceful obligingness.

I hear that he praised me, and my part in the conversation that
passed between us. To shew them, I suppose, that it was not upon the
interesting subjects which I make no doubt he was desired not to enter
upon.

He left me so dissatisfied, yet so perplexed with this new way of
treatment, that I never found myself so much disconcerted, and out of my
train.

But I was to be more so. This was to be a day of puzzle to me. Pregnant
puzzle, if I may say so: for there must great meaning lie behind it.

In the afternoon, all but my brother and sister went to church with
the good doctor; who left his compliments for me. I took a walk in the
garden. My brother and sister walked in it too, and kept me in their
eye a goo