If not to-morrow, Madam, say but next Thursday, your uncle's birth-day; say but next Thursday!

This I say, of this you may assure yourself, I never, 6 never will be your's. And let me hope, that I may

be entitled to the performance of your promise, to be ' permitted to leave this innocent house, as one called it, 6 (but long have my ears been accustomed to such inversions of words,) as soon as the day breaks.'

Did my perdition depend upon it, that you cannot, Madam, but upon terms. And I hope you will not terrify me--still dreading the accursed knife.

Nothing less than an attempt upon my honour shall make me desperate. I have no view but to defend my honour with such a view only I entered into treaty with your infamous agent below. The resolution you have seen, I trust, God will give me again, upon the 6 same occasion. But for a less, I wish not for it.—Only 'take notice, women, that I am no wife of this man:

basely as he has used me, I am not his wife. He has 6 no authority over me. If he go away by-and-by, and 6 you act by his authority to detain me, look to it.'

Then, taking one of the lights, she turned from us; and away she went, unmolested.-Not a soul was able to molest her.

Mabell saw her, tremblingly, and in a hurry, take the key of her chamber-door out of her pocket, and unlock it; and, as soon as she entered, heart her double-lock, bar, and bolt it.

By her taking out her key, when she came out of her chamber to us, she no doubt suspected my design: which was, to have carried her in my arms thither, if she made such force necessary, after I had intimidated her; and to have been her companion for that night.

She was to have had several bedchamber-women to assist to undress her upon occasion: but from the moment she entered the dining-room with so much intrepidity, it was absolutely impossible to think of prosecuting my vil lanous designs against her.

THIS, this, Belford, was the hand I made of a contrivance from which I expected so much!-And now I am ten times worse off than before.

Thou never sawest people in thy life look so like fools upon one another, as the mother, her partners, and I, did, for a few minutes. And at last, the two devilish nymphs' broke out into insulting ridicule upon me; while the old wretch was concerned for her house, the reputation of her house. I cursed them all together; and, retiring to my chamber, locked myself in.

And now it is time to set out: all I have gained, detection, disgrace, fresh guilt by repeated perjuries, and to be despised by her I doat upon; and, what is still worse to a proud heart, by myself.

Success, success in projects, is every thing. What an admirable contriver did I think myself till now! Even for this scheme among the rest! But how pitifully foolish does it now appear to me !-Scratch out, erase, never to be read, every part of my preceding letters, where I have boastingly mentioned it. And never presume to rally me for I cannot bear it.

upon the cursed subject:

But for the lady, by my soul, I love her. I admire her more than ever! I must have her. I will have her still —with honour or without, as I have often vowed. My cursed fright at her accidental bloody nose, so lately, put her upon improving upon me thus. Had she threatened ME, I should soon have been master of one arm, and in

both! But for so sincere a virtue to threaten herself, and not to offer to intimidate any other, and with so much presence of mind, as to distinguish, in the very passionate intention, the necessity of the act, defence of her honour, and so fairly to disavow lesser occasions: showed such a deliberation, such a choice, such a principle; and then keeping me so watchfully at a distance, that I could not seize her hand, so soon as she could have given the fatal blow; how impossible not to be subdued by so true and so discreet a magnanimity!

But she is not gone. She shall not go. I will press her with letters for the Thursday. She shall yet be mine, legally mine. For, as to cohabitation, there is no such thing to be thought of.

The Captain shall give her away, as proxy for her uncle. My Lord will die. My fortune will help my will, and set me above every thing and every body.

But here is the curse-she despises me, Jack!—What man, as I have heretofore said, can bear to be despised— especially by his wife!-O Lord!-O Lord! What a hand, what a cursed hand, have I made of this plot!—And here ends

The history of the lady and the penknife!-The devil take the penknife!-It goes against me to say,

God bless the lady!

Near 5, Sat. Morn.

LETTER XIV.

MR. LOVELACE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

[SUPERSCRIBED TO MRS. LOVELACE.]

MY DEAREST LIFE,

M. Hall, Sat. Night, June 24.

IF you do not impute to love, and to terror raised by love, the poor figure I made before you last night, you will not do me justice. I thought I would try to the very last moment, if, by complying with you in every thing, I could prevail upon you to promise to be mine on Thursday next, since you refused me an earlier day. Could I have been so happy, you had not been hindered going to Hamp. stead, or wherever else you pleased. But when I could not prevail upon you to give me this assurance, what room had I, (my demerit so great,) to suppose, that your going thither would not be to lose you for ever?

I will own to you, Madam, that yesterday afternoon I picked up the paper dropt by Dorcas; who has confessed that she would have assisted you in getting away, if she had had an opportunity so to do; and undoubtedly dropped it by accident. And could I have prevailed upon you as to Thursday next, I would have made no use of it; secure as I should then have been in your word given, to be mine. But when I found you inflexible, I was resolved to try, if, by resenting Dorcas's treachery, I could not make your pardon of me the condition of mine to her: and if not, to make a handle of it to revoke my consent to your going away from Mrs. Sinclair's; since the consequence of that must have been so fatal to me.

So far, indeed, as my proceeding low and artful:

and when I was challenged with it, as such, in so high and noble a manner, I could not avoid taking shame to myself upon it.

But you must permit me, Madam, to hope, that you will not punish me too heavily for so poor a contrivance, since no dishonour was meant you: and since, in the moment of its execution, you had as great an instance of my inca pacity to defend a wrong, a low measure, and, at the same time, in your power over me, as mortal man could givein a word, since you must have seen, that I was absolutely under the controul both of conscience and of love.

I will not offer to defend myself, for wishing you to remain where you are, till either you give me your word to meet me at the altar on Thursday; or till I have the honour of attending you, preparative to the solemnity which will make that day the happiest of my life.

:

I am but too sensible, that this kind of treatment may appear to you with the face of an arbitrary and illegal imposition but as the consequences, not only to ourselves, but to both our families, may be fatal, if you cannot be moved in my favour; let me beseech you to forgive this act of compulsion, on the score of the necessity you your dear self have laid me under to be guilty of it; and to permit the solemnity of next Thursday to include an act of oblivion for all past offences.

The orders I have given to the people of the house are: That you shall be obeyed in every particular that is 'consistent with my expectations of finding you there on C my return to town on Wednesday next: that Mrs. Sin

clair and her nieces, having incurred your just dis6 pleasure, shall not, without your orders, come into your 6 presence that neither shall Dorcas, till she has fully cleared her conduct to your satisfaction, be permitted to