We received, therefore, "Clarissa," expecting edification, but not joy. We even put it aside for a week, because Mrs. Esther hardly felt herself, at first, strong enough to begin a new book, which might flood her mind with new ideas and make her unsettled. At last, however, she felt that we must no longer postpone obeying the Doctor. "Only a short chapter, my dear, to begin with. Heavens! how shall we struggle through eight long volumes?" I shall be ever thankful that it was my duty to read these dear delightful pages of this great romance. You may judge of our joy when we read on, day after day, hurrying over household work in the morning, neglecting our walks abroad, and wasting candlelight in the evening the more to enjoy it. We laid aside the book from time to time while we wept over the author's pathetic scenes. Oh, the horrid usage of poor Clarissa! Was ever girl more barbarously served? Was ever man so wicked as her lover? Were parents ever so blinded by prejudice? Had girl ever so unkind a brother--ever so perverse a sister? I thought of her all day long, and at night I dreamed of her: the image of Clarissa was never absent from my brain. Everything in the book was as real to me as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, or those of Christian on his pilgrimage from the City of Destruction. So long as the reading of this immortal book lasted--we read page after page twice, thrice, or four times over, to get out of them the fullest measure of sympathy, sorrow, and delight--we loved with Clarissa: her sorrows were ours: we breathed and talked Clarissa: Mrs. Esther even prayed, I believe--though the book was already printed, and therefore it was too late for prayer--that the poor, sweet innocent, might escape the clutches of her wicked lover, who, sure, was more a demon than a man: we carried the thought of Clarissa even to church with us. We invited our friends to share with us this new-found joy. Solomon Stallabras was always ready to weep with us over a dish of tea. Never any man had a heart more formed for the tenderest sensibility. Pity that his nose was so broad and so much turned up, otherwise this natural tenderness might have been manifested in his countenance. While I read he gazed upon my face, and was fain, from time to time, to draw forth his handkerchief and wipe the tears from his streaming eyes. "Stop, Miss Kitty!" he would say: "let us pause awhile: let us come back to virtue and ourselves. It is too much: the spectacle of so much youth and beauty, so much innocence--the fate of our poor Clarissa--read by a nymph whose lot is so below her merits--it is too much, Mrs. Pimpernel--it is indeed!"