LETTER V

MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
MONDAY, AUG. 14.


All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
you to go to one of the plantations. This, I believe, is owing to some
misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.

I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
family in his behalf. This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in
time, reconcile every body to you. For your own friends will not believe
that he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families
is such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor
would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.

I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
particulars of your sad story under your own hand. But let me tell you,
at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own
confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your
prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your humble
way to make light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my
dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so
few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of
them into excellencies.

Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance