To what purpose expostulate with me, Clarissa? Your father is
determined. Have I not told you there is no receding; that the honour as
well as the interest of the family is concerned? Be ingenuous: you used
to be so, even occasionally against yourself:--Who at the long run must
submit--all of us to you; or you to all of us?--If you intend to yield
at last if you find you cannot conquer, yield now, and with a grace--for
yield you must, or be none of our child.
I wept. I knew not what to say; or rather how to express what I had to
say.
Take notice, that there are flaws in your grandfather's will: not
a shilling of that estate will be yours, if you do not yield. Your
grandfather left it to you, as a reward of your duty to him and to
us--You will justly forfeit it, if--
Permit me, good Madam, to say, that, if it were unjustly bequeathed me,
I ought not to wish to have it. But I hope Mr. Solmes will be apprised
of these flaws.
This is very pertly said, Clarissa: but reflect, that the forfeiture of
that estate, through your opposition, will be attended with the total
loss of your father's favour: and then how destitute must you be; how
unable to support yourself; and how many benevolent designs and good
actions must you give up!
I must accommodate myself, Madam, in the latter case, to my
circumstance: much only is required where much is given. It becomes me
to be thankful for what I have had. I have reason to bless you, Madam,
and my good Mrs. Norton, for bringing me up to be satisfied with little;
with much less, I will venture to say, than my father's indulgence
annually confers upon me.--And then I thought of the old Roman and his
lentils.
What perverseness! said my mother.--But if you depend upon the favour of
either or both of your uncles, vain will be that dependence: they
will give you up, I do assure you, if your father does, and absolutely
renounce you.
I am sorry, Madam, that I have had so little merit as to have made no
deeper impressions of favour for me in their hearts: but I will love and
honour them as long as I live.
All this, Clarissa, makes your prepossession in a certain man's favour
the more evident. Indeed, your brother and sister cannot go any where,
but they hear of these prepossessions.
It is a great grief to me, Madam, to be made the subject of the public
talk: but I hope you will have the goodness to excuse me for observing,
that the authors of my disgrace within doors, the talkers of my
prepossession without, and the reporters of it from abroad, are
originally the same persons.
She severely chid me for this.