"Farewell, dearest beloved MD, and love poor poor Presto, who has not had one
happy day since he left you." "I will say no more, but beg you to be easy
till Fortune takes his course, and to believe MD's felicity is the great goal
I aim at in all my pursuits." "How does Stella look, Madam Dingley?" he asks;
"pretty well, a handsome young woman still? Will she pass in a crowd? Will
she make a figure in a country church?" Elsewhere he writes, on receipt of a
letter, "God Almighty bless poor dear Stella, and send her a great many
birthdays, all happy and healthy and wealthy, and with me ever together, and
never asunder again, unless by chance. . . . I can hardly imagine you absent
when I am reading your letter or writing to you. No, faith, you are just here
upon this little paper, and therefore I see and talk with you every evening
constantly, and sometimes in the morning." The letters lay under Swift's
pillow, and he fondled them as if he were caressing Stella's hand.

Of Stella herself we naturally have no direct account in the Journal, but we
hear a good deal of her life in Ireland, and can picture what she was. Among
her friends in and about Trim and Laracor were Dr. Raymond, the vicar of Trim,
and his wife, the Garret Wesleys, the Percevals, and Mr. Warburton, Swift's
curate. At Dublin there were Archdeacon Walls and his family; Alderman
Stoyte, his wife and sister-in-law; Dean Sterne and the Irish Postmaster-
General, Isaac Manley. For years these friends formed a club which met in
Dublin at each other's houses, to sup and play cards ("ombre and claret, and
toasted oranges"), and we have frequent allusions to Stella's indifferent
play, and the money which she lost, much to Mrs. Dingley's chagrin: "Poor
Dingley fretted to see Stella lose that four and elevenpence t'other night."
Mrs. Dingley herself could hardly play well enough to hold the cards while
Stella went into the next room. If at dinner the mutton was underdone, and
"poor Stella cannot eat, poor dear rogue," then "Dingley is so vexed." Swift
was for ever urging Stella to walk and ride; she was "naturally a stout
walker," and "Dingley would do well enough if her petticoats were pinned up."