ne.

But, alas! my dear, this, even this alternative, is not without
difficulties, which, to a spirit so little enterprising as mine, seem in
a manner insuperable. These are my reflections upon it.

I am afraid, in the first place, that I shall not have time for the
requisite preparations for an escape.

Should I be either detected in those preparations, or pursued and
overtaken in my flight, and so brought back, then would they think
themselves doubly warranted to compel me to have their Solmes: and,
conscious of an intended fault, perhaps, I should be the less able to
contend with them.

But were I even to get safely to London, I know nobody there but by
name; and those the tradesmen to our family; who, no doubt, would be
the first written to and engaged to find me out. And should Mr. Lovelace
discover where I was, and he and my brother meet, what mischiefs
might ensue between them, whether I were willing or not to return to
Harlowe-place!

But supposing I could remain there concealed, to what might my youth, my
sex, and unacquaintedness of the ways of that great, wicked town, expose
me!--I should hardly dare to go to church for fear of being discovered.
People would wonder how I lived. Who knows but I might pass for a kept
mistress; and that, although nobody came to me, yet, that every time I
went out, it might be imagined to be in pursuance of some assignation?

You, my dear, who alone would know where to direct to me, would be
watched in all your steps, and in all your messages; and your mother,
at present not highly pleased with our correspondence, would then have
reason to be more displeased: And might not differences follow between
her and you, that would make me very unhappy, were I to know them? And
this the more likely, as you take it so unaccountably (and, give me
leave to say, so ungenerously) into your head, to revenge yourself upon
the innocent Mr. Hickman, for all the displeasure your mother gives you.

Were Lovelace to find out my place of abode, that would be the same
thing in the eye of the world as if I had actually gone off with him:
For would he, do you think, be prevailed upon to forbear visiting me?
And then his unhappy character (a foolish man!) would be no credit to
any young creature desirous of concealment. Indeed the world, let me
escape whither, and to whomsoever I could, would conclude him to be the
contriver of it.

These are the difficulties which arise to me on revolving this s