In the morning sent Thomas Davy to Hartfield to know how my wife’s sister did. Also sent for Mr Stone to visit my wife. Molly Hook came today as a servant during our pleasure. We dined on some boiled plaice… In the evening Mr Stone paid my wife a visit and declared his opinion of her illness that it was a rheumatic disorder with the gravel in her kidneys. Thomas Davy came back in the evening and brought us news that my sister was very bad, and I suppose he had a great deal of my mother’s nonsense, which she is very full of, having a great volubility of tongue for invective, and especially if I am the subject though what the good woman wants with me I know not, unless it be that I have offended her by being too careful of her daughter, who, poor creature, has enjoyed but little pleasure of her life in the marriage state, being almost continually (to our great misfortune) afflicted with illness. But who is the person that should repine at what the sovereign Disposer of all events pleases to afflict us poor mortals with here below?