But how came it to pass, that one man could get out at the garden-door,
and no more? how, that that man kept aloof, as it were, and pursued us
not; nor ran back to alarm the house? my fright, and my distance, would
not let me be certain; but really this man, as I now recollect, had the
air of that vile Joseph Leman.

O why, why, my dear friends!--But wherefore blame I them, when I had
argued myself into a hope, not improbable, that even the dreadful trial
I was to undergo so soon might turn out better than if I had been
directly carried away from the presence of my once indulgent parents,
who might possibly intend that trial to be the last I should have had?

Would to Heaven, that I had stood it, however! then if I had afterwards
done, what now I have been prevailed upon, or perhaps foolishly
frightened to do, I should not have been stung so much by inward reproach
as now I am: and this would have been a great evil avoided.

You know, my dear, that your Clarissa's mind was ever above justifying
her own failings by those of others. God forgive those of my friends who
have acted cruelly by me! But their faults are their own, and not
excuses for mine. And mine began early: for I ought not to have
corresponded with him.

O the vile encroacher! how my indignation, at times, rises at him! thus
to lead a young creature (too much indeed relying upon her own strength)
from evil to evil!--This last evil, although the remote, yet sure
consequence of my first--my prohibited correspondence! by a father early
prohibited.

How much more properly had I acted, with regard to that correspondence,