and your news, that Mr. St. John is going to Holland; he has no such thoughts to quit the great station he is in, nor if he had, could I be spared to go with him. So faith, politick madam Stella, you come with your two eggs a penny, &c. Well, madam Dingley, and so Mrs. Stoyte invites you, and so you stay at Donnybrook[1], and so you could not write. You are plaguy exact in your journals from Dec. 25, to Jan. 4th. Well, Smyth and the palsy water I have handled already, and he does not lodge (or rather did not, for poor man now he is gone) at Mr. Jesse's and all that stuff; but we found his lodging, and I went to Stella's mother on my own head, for I never remembered it was in the letter to desire another bottle; but I was so fretted, so tosticated, and so impatient, that Stella should have her water (I mean decently, do not be rogues) and so vexed with Sterne's carelessness. Pray God Stella's illness may not return. If they come seldom, they begin to be weary; I judge by myself; for when I seldom visit, I grow weary of my acquaintance. Leave a good deal of my tenth unanswered Impudent slut, when did you ever answer my tenth, or ninth, or any other number? or who desires you to answer, provided you write? I defy the D to answer my letters; sometimes there may be one or two things I should be glad you would answer, but I forget them, and you never think of them. I shall never love answering letters again, if you talk of answering. Answering, quotha; pretty answerers truly. As for the pamphlet you speak of, and call it scandalous, and that one Mr. Presto is said to
