Clarissa Harlowe

[In continuation]

As this subject was introduced by himself, and treated so lightly by him, I was going on to tell him more of my mind; but he interrupted me -- Dear, dear Madam, spare me. I am sorry that I have lived to this hour for nothing at all. But surely you could not have quitted a subject so much more agreeable, and so much more suitable, I will say, to your present situation, if you had not too cruel a pleasure in mortifying a man, who the less needed to be mortified, as he before looked up to you with a diffidence in his own merits too great to permit him to speak half of his mind to you. Be pleased but to return to the subject we were upon; and at another time I will gladly embrace correction from the only lips in the world so qualified to give it.