descended. You are offered a man, whose perplexities have not proceeded from the entanglements of intrigue, inconstancy, perfidy; but from his own compassionate nature: And could you, by any other way in the world than by this supposed divided Love, have had it in your power, by accepting his humbly-offered hand, to lay him under obligation to you, which he thinks he never shall be able to discharge? Lay him—Who?—Sir CHARLES GRANDISON—For whom so many virgin hearts have sighed in vain!—And what a triumph to our Sex is this, as well as to my Harriet!
And now, Harriet, let me tell you, that my sister and I are both in great expectations of your next Letter. It is, it must be, written before you will have this. My brother is more than man: You have only to shew yourself to be superior to the forms of woman. If you play the fool with him, now, that you have the power you and we have so long wished you; if you give pain to his noble, because sincere heart, by any the least shadow of Female affectation; you, who have hitherto been distinguished for so amiable a frankness of heart; you, who cannot doubt his honour—the honour of a man who solicits your favour in even a great manner, a manner in which no man before him ever courted a woman, because few men before him have ever been so particularly circumstanced; a manner that gives you an opportunity to outshine, in your acceptance of him, even the noble Clementina in her refusal; as bigotry must have been, in part, her motive; if, I say, you act foolishly, weakly, now—Look to it—You will depreciate, if not cast away your own glory. Remember, you have a man to deal with, who, from our behaviour to Mrs. Oldham, at his first return to England, took measure of our minds, and, without loving us the less for it, looked

down upon us with pity; and made us, ever since, look upon ourselves in a diminishing light, and as sisters who have greater reason to glory in their brother, than he has in them. Would you not rather, you who are to stand in a still nearer relation to him, invite his admiration, than his pity? Till Friday night last you had it: What Saturday has produced, we shall soon guess.
Not either Lord L. or Lord G. not Emily, not aunt Eleanor, now, either see or hear read what you write, except here