ten to your cousin Morden,
the moment they had begun to treat you disgracefully.

I shall be impatient to hear whether they will attempt to carry you to
your uncle's. I remember, that Lord M.'s dismissed bailiff reported of
Lovelace, that he had six or seven companions as bad as himself; and
that the country was always glad when they left it.* He actually has, as
I hear, such a knot of them about him now. And, depend upon it, he will
not suffer them quietly to carry you to your uncle's: And whose must you
be, if he succeeds in taking you from them?

* See Vol.I. Letter IV.

I tremble for you but upon supposing what may be the consequence of a
conflict upon this occasion. Lovelace owes some of them vengeance. This
gives me a double concern, that my mother should refuse her consent to
the protection I had set my heart upon procuring for you.

My mother will not breakfast without me. A quarrel has its conveniencies
sometimes. Yet too much love, I think, is as bad as too little.

*****

We have just now had another pull. Upon my word, she is
excessively--what shall I say?--unpersuadable--I must let her off with
that soft word.

Who was the old Greek, that said, he governed Athens; his wife, him; and
his son, her?

It was not my mother's fault [I am writing to you, you know] that she
did not govern my father. But I am but a daughter!--Yet I thought I was
not quite so powerless when I was set upon carrying a point, as I find
myself to be.

Adieu, my dear!--Happier times must come--and that quickly too.--The
strings cannot long continue to be thus overstrained. They must break
or be relaxed. In either way, the certainty must be preferable to the
suspense.

One word more:

I think in my conscience you must take one of these two alternatives;
either to consent to let us go to London together privately; [in which
case, I will procure a vehicle, and meet you at your appointment at the
stile to which Lovelace proposes to bring his uncle's chariot;] or,
to put yourself into the protection of Lord M. and the ladies of his
family.

You have another, indeed; and that is, if you are absolutely resolved
against Solmes, to meet and marry Lovelace directly.

Whichsoever of these you make choice of, you will have this plea,
both to yourself, and to the world, that you are concluded by the same
uniform principle that has governed your whole conduct, ever since the
contention between Lovelace and your brother ha