Nine, Friday Morn

I have no opportunity to write at length, having necessary orders to give on the melancholy occasion. Joel, who got to me by six in the morning, and whom I dispatched instantly back with the letter I had ready from last night, gives me but an indifferent account of the state of your mind. I wonder not at it; but time (and nothing else can) will make it easier to you: if (that is to say) you have compounded with your conscience; else it may be heavier every day than other.

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Tourville tells us what a way you are in. I hope you will not think of coming hither. The lady in her will desires you may not see her. Four copies are making of it. It is a long one; for she gives her reasons for all she wills. I will write to you more particularly as soon as possibly I can.

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Three letters are just brought by a servant in livery, directed To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. I will send copies of them to you. The contents are enough to make one mad. How would this poor lady have rejoiced to receive them!⁠—And yet, if she had, she would not have been enabled to say, as she nobly did,382 That God would not let her depend for comfort upon any but Himself.⁠—And indeed for some days past she had seemed to have got above all worldly considerations.⁠—Her fervent love, even for her Miss Howe, as she acknowledged, having given way to supremer fervours.383