Chapter 404

April 27, 1794. (page 558)

This is no plot to draw you into committing even a good deed on a Sunday, which I suppose the literality of your conscience would haggle about, as if the day of the week constitutes the sin, and not the nature of the crime. But you may defer your answer till to-night is become to-morrow by the clock having struck one; and then you may do an innocent thing without any guilt, which a quarter of an hour sooner you would think abominable. Nay, as an Irishman would say, you need not even read this note till the canonical hour is past.

In short, my dear Madam), I gave your obliging message to Lady Waldegrave, who will be happy to see you on Tuesday, at one o'clock But as her staircase is very bad, as she is in a lodging, I have proposed that this meeting, for which I have been pimping between two female saints, may be held here in my house, as I had the utmost difficulty last night in climbing her scala santa, and I cannot undertake it again. But if you are so good as to send me a favourable answer to-morrow, I will take care you shall find her here at the time I mentioned, with your true admirer.