Wednesday, February 28 (alias Ash Wednesday) 1759

…Dame Durrant and her niece Gift Durrant drank tea at our house. In the evening I went down to Joseph Fuller’s, where I stayed till about 7:20. This day that shadow of a man Mr Will Piper come to inform me that his boy was to be made a Christian of [i.e., christened] tomorrow and that he expected I should stand godfather for it, I having in some measure before promised him; that is, so far as if he could get nobody else. But however the poor old wretch told my wife that he would [not] have she should come up tomorrow night, for he did not invite any to dinner with him but them only that stand sponsors. For if he were to invite his neighbors to dinner with him (as in gratitude he ought), they would not come half. And he could not or would not have the plague and trouble of getting a dinner for so many people, though I believe had not niggardliness been the only motive to prevent his asking his neighbors, there would have been no fear of their coming.

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