Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/320

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312
DR. SWIFT’S

news will bring down stocks so low, that one might buy to great advantage. I design to venture going to see your mother some day when lady Giffard is abroad. Well, keep your Rathburn and stuff. I thought he was to pay in your money upon his houses to be flung down about the what do you call it. Well, madam Dingley, I sent your enclosed to Bristol, but have not heard from Raymond since he went. Come, come young women, I keep a good fire; it costs me twelve pence a week, and I fear something more; vex me. and I will have one in my bedchamber too. No, did not I tell you but just now, we have no high winds here. Have you forgot already? Now you are at it again, silly Stella; why does your mother say, my candles are scandalous? they are good sixes in the pound, and she said I was extravagant enough to burn them by daylight. I never burn fewer at a time than one. What would people have? the D burst Hawkshaw. He told me he had not the box, and the next day Sterne[1] told me he had sent it a fortnight ago; Patrick could not find him the other day, but he shall to morrow: dear life and heart, do you tease me? does Stella tease Presto? that palsy water was in the box: it was too big for a packet, and I was afraid of its breaking. Leigh was not in town then, or I would not have trusted it to Sterne, whom yet I have befriended enough to do me more kindness than that. I will never rest till you have it, or till it is in a way for you to have it. Poor dear rogue, naughty to think it teases me; how could I ever for-

  1. Enoch Sterne, esq., clerk to the house of lords in Ireland, and collector of Wicklow.
give