betters, and the puppies with you in Ireland hardly regarding me: but there
are some reasons for all this, which I will tell you when we meet. At coming
home, I saw a letter from your mother, in answer to one I sent her two days
ago. It seems she is in town; but cannot come out in a morning, just as you
said; and God knows when I shall be at leisure in an afternoon: for if I
should send her a penny-post letter, and afterwards not be able to meet her,
it would vex me; and, besides, the days are short, and why she cannot come
early in a morning, before she is wanted, I cannot imagine. I will desire her
to let Lady Giffard know that she hears I am in town; and that she would go to
see me, to inquire after you. I wonder she will confine herself so much to
that old beast's humour. You know I cannot in honour see Lady Giffard, and
consequently not go into her house. This I think is enough for the first
time.

12. And how could you write with such thin paper? (I forgot to say this in
my former.) Cannot you get thicker? Why, that's a common caution that
writing-masters give their scholars; you must have heard it a hundred times.
'Tis this:

"If paper be thin,
Ink will slip in;
But, if it be thick,
You may write with a stick."[5]

I had a letter to-day from poor Mrs. Long,[6] giving me an account of her
present life, obscure in a remote country town, and how easy she is under it.
Poor creature! 'tis just such an alteration in life, as if Presto should be
banished from MD, and condemned to converse with Mrs. Raymond. I dined to-day
with Ford, Sir Richard Levinge,[7] etc., at a place where they board, hard by.
I was lazy, and not very well, sitting so long with company yesterday. I have