the Thursday at about noon
He went to Kilmarnock , thinking it better to make his approaches by degrees . Were he to present himself at once at the castle and be refused admittance , he would hardly know how to repeat his application or to force himself upon her presence . From Kilmarnock he wrote to her , saying that business connected with his ministrations during the coming autumn had brought him into her beautiful neighbourhood , and that he could not leave it without paying his respects to her in person . With her permission he would call upon her on the Thursday at about noon . He trusted that the state of her health would not prevent her from seeing him , and reminded her that a clergyman was often as welcome a visitor at the bedside of the invalid , as the doctor or the nurse . He gave her no address , as he rather wished to hinder her from answering him , but at the appointed hour he knocked at the castle-door . Need it be said that Lizzie 's state of health was not such as to preclude her from seeing so intimate a friend as Mr. Emilius ?