her through, which she willingly accepted, and I led her to the Great Gate, and there left her, she telling me, of her own accord, that she was going as far as, Charing Cross; but my boy was at the gate, and so je durst not go out con her, which vexed me, and my mind (God forgive me) did run apres her toute that night, though I have reason to thank God, and so I do now, that I was not tempted to go further.  So to Lincoln’s Inn, where to Mr. Pedly, with whom I spoke, and did my business presently:  and I find him a man of very good language, and mighty civil, and I believe very upright:  and so home, where W. Batelier was, and supped with us, and I did reckon this night what I owed him; and I do find that the things my wife, of her own head, hath taken (together with my own, which comes not to above L5), comes to above L22.  But it is the last, and so I am the better contented; and they are things that are not trifles, but clothes, gloves, shoes, hoods, &c.  So after supper, to bed.

18th.  Up, and to the Office, and at noon home, expecting to have this day seen Bab. and Betty Pepys here, but they come not; and so after dinner my wife and I to the Duke of York’s house, to a play, and there saw “The Mad Lover,” which do not please me so well as it used to do, only Betterton’s part still pleases me.  But here who should we have come to us but Bab. and Betty and Talbot, the first play they were yet at; and going to see us, and hearing by my boy, whom I sent to them, that we were here, they come to us hither, and happened all of us to sit by my cozen Turner and The., and we carried them home first, and then took Bab. and Betty to our house, where they lay and supped, and pretty merry, and very fine with their new clothes, and good comely girls they are enough, and very glad I am of their being with us, though I would very well have been contented to have been without the charge.  So they to bed and we to bed.

19th.  Up, and after seeing the girls, who lodged in our bed, with their maid Martha, who hath been their father’s maid these twenty years and more, I with Lord Brouncker to White Hall, where all of us waited on the Duke of York; and after our usual business done, W. Hewer and I to look my wife at the Black Lion, Mercer’s, but she is gone home, and so I home and there dined, and W. Batelierand W. Hewer with us.  All the afternoon I at the Office, while the young people went to see Bedlam, and at night home to them and to supper, and pretty merry, only troubled with a great cold at this time, and my eyes very bad ever since Monday night last that the light of the candles spoiled me.  So to bed.  This morning, among other things, talking with Sir W. Coventry, I did propose to him my putting in to serve in Parliament, if there should, as the world begins to expect, be a new one chose:  he likes it mightily, both for the King’s and Service’s sake, and the Duke of York’s, and will propound it to the Duke of York:  and I confess, if there be one, I would be glad to be in.