I have, I confess, been guilty of an action which carries with it a rash
and undutiful appearance. And I should have thought it an inexcusable
one, had I been used with less severity than I have been of late; and
had I not had too great reason to apprehend, that I was to be made a
sacrifice to a man I could not bear to think of. But what is done, is
done--perhaps I could wish it had not; and that I had trusted to the
relenting of my dear and honourable parents.--Yet this from no other
motives but those of duty to them.--To whom I am ready to return (if
I may not be permitted to retire to The Grove) on conditions which I
before offered to comply with.
Nor shall I be in any sort of dependence upon the person by whose means
I have taken this truly-reluctant step, inconsistent with any reasonable
engagement I shall enter into, if I am not further precipitated. Let me
not have it to say, now at this important crisis! that I have a sister,
but not a friend in that sister. My reputation, dearer to me than life,
(whatever you may imagine from the step I have taken,) is suffering. A
little lenity will, even yet, in a great measure, restore it, and make
that pass for a temporary misunderstanding only, which otherwise will be
a stain as durable as life, upon a creature who has already been treated
with great unkindness, to use no harsher a word.
For your own sake therefore, for my brother's sake, by whom (I must say)
I have been thus precipitated, and for all the family's sake, aggravate
not my fault, if, on recollecting every thing, you think it one; nor by
widening the unhappy difference, expose a sister for ever--prays
Your affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
I shall take it for a very great favour to have my clothes directly sent
me, together with fifty guineas, which you will find in my escritoire
(of which I enclose the key); as also of the divinity and miscellany
classes of my little library; and, if it be thought fit, my
jewels--directed for me, to be left till called for, at Mr. Osgood's,
near Soho-square.