Clarissa, Volume 3

my mother, I know not. Yet if she hear it first from any other, and find I knew it before, she will believe it to be my connivance!--Yet, as I hope to live, I know not how to break it to her.

But this is teasing you.--I am sure, without intention.

Let me now repeat my former advice--If you are not married by this time, be sure delay not the ceremony. Since things are as they are, I wish it were thought that you were privately married before you went away. If these men plead AUTHORITY to our pain, when we are theirs--Why should we not, in such a case as this, make some good out of the hated word, for our reputation, when we are induced to violate a more natural one?

Your brother and sister [that vexes me almost as much as any thing!] have now their ends. Now, I suppose, will go forward alterations of wills, and such-like spiteful doings.

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Miss Lloyd and Miss Biddulph this moment send up their names. They are out of breath, Kitty says, to speak to me--easy to guess their er