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LETTER L.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe.
Saturday Afternoon, April 22.
O my best, my only friend! Now indeed is my heart broken! It has received a blow it never will recover. Think not of corresponding with a wretch who now seems absolutely devoted. How can it be otherwise, if a parent's curses have the weight I always attributed to them, and have heard so many instances in confirmation of that weight!---Yes, my dear Miss Howe, superadded to all my afflictions, I have the consequences of a Father's Curse to struggle with! How shall I support this reflection!---My past and my present situation so much authorizing my apprehensions!
I have, at last, a Letter from my unrelenting Sister. Would to Heaven I had not provoked it by my second Letter to my Aunt Hervey! It lay ready for me, it seems. The thunder slept, till I awakened it. I inclose the Letter itself. Transcribe it I cannot. There is no bearing the thoughts of it: For [Shocking reflection!] the Curse extends to the life beyond This.
I am in the depth of vapourish despondency. I can only repeat, Shun, fly, correspond not with a wretch so devoted, as
Clarissa Harlowe.