There may possibly be some reason why you are so much attached to her in an error of this flagrant nature.

I help to make a sister unhappy!-It is false, Miss!It is all her own doings!-except, indeed, what she may owe to somebody's advice-you know who can best answer for that.

Let us know your mind as soon as you please: as we shall know it to be your mind, we shall judge what attention to give it. That's all, from, &c.

AR. H.

LETTER LXXXVII.

MISS HOWE, TO MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE.

Sat. July 22.

It may be the misfortune of some people to engage every body's notice: others may be the happier, though they may be the more envious, for nobody's thinking them worthy of any. But one would be glad people had the sense to be thankful for that want of consequence, which subjected them not to hazards they would hardly have been able to manage under.

I own to you, that had it not been for the prudent advice of that admirable somebody (whose principal fault is the superiority of her talents, and whose misfortune to be brother'd and sister'd by a couple of creatures, who are not able to comprehend her excellencies) I might at one time have been plunged into difficulties. But pert as the superlatively pert may think me, I thought not myself wiser, because I was older; nor for that poor reason

qualified to prescribe to, much less to maltreat, a genius so superior.

I repeat it with gratitude, that the dear creature's advice was of very great service to me--and this before my mother's watchfulness became necessary. But how it would have fared with me, I cannot say, had I had a brother or sister, who had deemed it their interest, as well as a gratification of their sordid envy, to misrepresent me.

Your admirable sister, in effect, saved you, Miss, as well as me-with this difference-you, against your will -me with mine: and but for your own brother, and his own sister, would not have been lost herself.

Would to Heaven both sisters had been obliged with their own wills!--the most admirable of her sex would never then have been out of her father's house!-you, Miss-I don't know what had become of you.-But, let what would have happened, you would have met with the humanity you have not shown, whether you had deserved it or not; nor, at worst, lost either a kind sister, or a pitying friend, in the most excellent of sisters.

But why run I into length to such a poor thing? why push I so weak an adversary? whose first letter is all low malice, and whose next is made up of falsehood and inconsistence, as well as spite and ill.manners! yet I was willing to give you a part of my mind. Call for more of it; it shall be at your service: from one, who, though she thanks God she is not your sister, is not your enemy : but that she is not the latter, is withheld but by two considerations; one that you bear, though unworthily, a re lation to a sister so excellent; the other, that you are not of consequence enough to engage any thing but the pity and contempt of

A. H.

LETTER LXXXVIII.

MRS. HARLOWE, TO MRS. HOWE.

DEAR MADAM,

Sat. July 22.

I SEND you, enclosed, copies of five letters that have pas

You are a

sed between Miss Howe and my Arabella. person of so much prudence and good sense, and (being a mother yourself) can so well enter into the distresses of all our family, upon the rashness and ingratitude of a child we once doated upon, that, I dare say, you will not countenance the strange freedoms your daughter has taken with us all. These are not the only ones we have to complain of; but we were silent on the others, as they did not, as these have done, spread themselves out upon paper. We only beg, that we may not be reflected upon by a young lady who knows not what we have suffered, and do suffer by the rashness of a naughty creature who has brought ruin upon herself, and disgrace upon a family which she has robbed of all comfort. I offer not to pre

scribe to your known wisdom in this case; but leave it to you to do as you think most proper. I am, Madam,

Your most humble servant,

CHARL. HARLOWE.

LETTER LXXXIX.

DEAR MADAM,

MRS. HOWE.

[In answer.]

Sat. July 22.

I AM highly offended with my daughter's letters to Miss Harlowe. I knew nothing at all of her having taken such a liberty. These young creatures have such romantic notions, some of love, some of friendship, that there is no governing them in either. Nothing but time, and dear experience, will convince them of their absurdities in both. I have chidden Miss Howe very severely. I had before so just a notion of what your whole family's distress must be, that, as I told your brother, Mr. Antony IIarlowe, I had often forbid her corresponding with the poor fallen angel-for surely never did young lady more resemble what we imagine of angels, both in person and mind. But, tired out with her headstrong ways, [I am sorry to say this of my own child,] I was forced to give way to it again. And, indeed, so sturdy was she in her will, that I was afraid it would end in a fit of sickness, as too often it did in fits of sullens.

None but parents know the trouble that children give. They are happiest, I have often thought, who have none. And these women-grown girls, bless my heart! how un. governable!

I believe, however, you will have no more such letters from my Nancy. I have been forced to use compulsion with her upon Miss Clary's illness, [and it seems she is very bad,] or she would have run away to London, to

attend upon her: and this she calls doing the duty of a friend; forgetting that she sacrifices to her romantic friendship her duty to her fond indulgent mother.

There are a thousand excellencies in the poor sufferer, notwithstanding her fault: and, if the hints she has given to my daughter be true, she has been most grievously abused. But I think your forgiveness and her father's forgiveness of her ought to be all at your own choice; and nobody should intermeddle in that, for the sake of due authority in parents and besides, as Miss Harlowe writes, it was what every body expected, though Miss Clary would not believe it till she smarted for her credulity. And, for these reasons, I offer not to plead any thing in alleviation of her fault, which is aggravated by her admirable sense, and a judgment above her years.

I am, Madam, with compliments to good Mr. Harlowe, and all your afflicted family,

Your most humble servant,

ANNABELLA HOWE.

I shall set out for the Isle of Wight in a few days, with my daughter. I will hasten our setting out, on purpose to break her mind from her friend's distresses; which afflict us as much, nearly, as Miss Clary's rashness has done you.