Volume VIII Part 27 (2/2)

MR. LOVELACE [IN CONTINUATION.]

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.

I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which some feared would have been his last.

I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet, and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters relating to this affair.

* See Vol. VI. Letters x.x.xVII. x.x.xVIII. x.x.xIX. XLIII.

I read to him, 'several pa.s.sages in the copies of those letters, which, thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him, 'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*

* See Vol. VI. Letter x.x.xVII.

I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private a.s.sembly, to whom I gave the same a.s.surances, and besought her interest with her friend.'

I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage) which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating her alliance in the names of all our family.

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.

This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or our family had been so much in earnest.

So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story, and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.

What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for himself!

I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her friends' implacableness.

And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this instance showed ours to be.

I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to her as I wished I had followed,) been a.s.sured that a visit from me would be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her one.

'This, Colonel, is the copy of it. I was then out of humour with my Lord M. and the ladies of my family. You will, therefore, read it to yourself.'*

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.

This letter gave him high satisfaction. You write here, Mr. Lovelace, from your heart. 'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement.

Your request is reasonable--To be forgiven only as you shall appear to deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix.

Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?

She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and throw myself at her feet.

I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it read as you shall think proper.

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