Will you oblige me with a copy of the preamble to the clauses in your grandfather’s will in your favour; and allow me to send it to my aunt Harman? She is very desirous to see it.
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE. HARLOWE PLACE, January 13.
WILL begin, my dearest friend, as you command, with Mr. Lovelace’s address to my sister.
It was in pursuance of a conference between Lord M. and my Uncle Antony, that Mr. Lovelace paid his respects to my sister Arabella. My brother was then in Scotland, busying himself in viewing the condition of the estate which was left him there by his generous godmother, together with one in Yorkshire. I was also absent at my dairyhouse, as it is called, busied in the accounts relating to the estate which my grandfather had the goodness to devise to me; and which once a year are left to my inspection, although I have given the whole into my father’s power.
My sister made me a visit there the day after Mr. Lovelace had been introduced ; and seemed highly pleased with the gentleman; his birth, his fortune, his great expectations.
“So handsome a man! 0 her beloved Clary l” (for then she was ready to love me dearly, from the overflowings of her good humour on his account !) “ He was but too handsome a man for her! Were she but as amiable as Somebody, there would be a probability of holding his affections! For he was wild, she heard; very wild, very gay, loved intrigue; but he was young, a man of sense; would see his error, could she but have patience with his faults, if his faults were not cured by marriage.”
Thus she ran on; and then wanted me “to see the
