LETTER 381
Mrs. Norton, to Miss Clarissa Harlowe
LETTER 381Visible text2 paragraphs
Monday, July 31
My Dearest Young Lady,
I must indeed own that I took the liberty to write to your mother, offering to enclose to her, if she gave me leave, yours of the 24th: by which I thought she would see what was the state of your mind; what the nature of your last troubles was from the wicked arrest; what the people are where you lodge; what proposals were made you from Lord M. 's family; also your sincere penitence; and how much Miss Howe's writing to them, in the terms she wrote in, disturbed you -- but, as you have taken the matter into your own hands, and forbid me, in your last, to act in this nice affair unknown to you, I am glad the letter was not required of me -- and indeed it may be better that the matter lie wholly between you and them; since my affection for you is thought to proceed from partiality.
I must indeed own that I took the liberty to write to your mother, offering to enclose to her, if she gave me leave, yours of the 24th: by which I thought she would see what was the state of your mind; what the nature of your last troubles was from the wicked arrest; what the people are where you lodge; what proposals were made you from Lord M. 's family; also your sincere penitence; and how much Miss Howe's writing to them, in the terms she wrote in, disturbed you -- but, as you have taken the matter into your own hands, and forbid me, in your last, to act in this nice affair unknown to you, I am glad the letter was not required of me -- and indeed it may be better that the matter lie wholly between you and them; since my affection for you is thought to proceed from partiality.