To my SISTER, then, I think, I will apply—Yet how hard-hearted has my sister been!—But I will not ask for protection; and yet I am in hourly dread that I shall want protection.—All I will ask for at present (preparative to the last forgiveness I will implore) shall be only to be freed from the heavy curse that seems to have operated as far is it can operate as to this life—and, surely, it was passion, and not intention, that carried it so far as to the other!
But why do I thus add to your distresses?—It is not, my dear Mrs. Norton, that I have so much feeling for my own calamity that I have none for your’s: since your’s is indeed an addition to my own. But you have one consolation (a very great one) which I have not:—That your afflictions, whether respecting your more or your less deserving child, rise not from any fault of your own.
But what can I do for you more than pray?—Assure yourself, that in every supplication I put up for myself, I will with equal fervour remember both you and your son. For I am and ever will be
Your truly sympathising and dutiful CLARISSA HARLOWE.
LETTER LXV
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [SUPERSCRIBED FOR MRS. RACHEL CLARK, &c.] WEDNESDAY, JULY 5.
MY DEAR CLARISSA,
I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected.
From my mother!
She had for some time seen me uneasy and grieving; and justly supposed it was about you: and this morning dropt a hint, which made me conjecture that she must have heard something of you more than I knew. And when she found that this added to my uneasiness, she owned she had a letter in her hands of your’s, dated the 29th of June, directed for me.