23rd.  Up, and going out of my dressing-room, when ready to go down stairs, I spied little Mrs. Tooker, my pretty little girle, which, it seems, did come yesterday to our house to stay a little while with us, but I did not know of it till now.  I was glad of her coming, she being a very pretty child, and now grown almost a woman.  I out by six o’clock by appointment to Hales’s, where we fell to my picture presently very hard, and it comes on a very fine picture, and very merry, pleasant discourse we had all the morning while he was painting.  Anon comes my wife and Mercer and little Tooker, and having done with me we all to a picture drawer’s hard by, Hales carrying me to see some landskipps of a man’s doing.  But I do not [like] any of them, save only a piece of fruit, which indeed was very fine.  Thence I to Westminster, to the Chequer, about a little business, and then to the Swan, and there sent for a bit of meat and dined; and after dinner had opportunity of being pleased with Sarah; and so away to Westminster Hall, and there Mrs. Michell tells me with great joy how little Betty Howlett is married to her young son Michell, which is a pretty odd thing, that he should so soon succeed in the match to his elder brother that died of the plague, and to the house and trade intended for him, and more they say that the girle has heretofore said that she did love this little one more than the other brother that was intended her all along.  I am mighty glad of this match, and more that they are likely to live near me in Thames Streete, where I may see Betty now and then, whom I from a girle did use to call my second wife, and mighty pretty she is.  Thence by coach to Anthony Joyce to receive Harman’s answer, which did trouble me to receive, for he now demands L800, whereas he never made exception at the portion, but accepted of L500.  This I do not like; but, however, I cannot much blame the man, if he thinks he can get more of another than of me.  So home and hard to my business at the office, where much business, and so home to supper and to bed.

24th.  Up and to the office, where all the morning.  At noon home to dinner, where Anthony Joyce, and I did give my final answer, I would give but L500 with my sister, and did show him the good offer made us in the country, to which I did now more and more incline, and intend to pursue that.  After dinner I to White Hall to a Committee for Tangier, where the Duke of Yorke was, and I acquitted myself well in what I had to do.  After the Committee up, I had occasion to follow the Duke into his lodgings, into a chamber where the Duchesse was sitting to have her picture drawn by Lilly, who was there at work.  But I was well pleased to see that there was nothing near so much resemblance of her face in his work, which is now the second, if not the third time, as there was of my wife’s at the very first time.  Nor do I think at last it can be like, the lines not being in proportion to those of her face.  So home, and to the office, where late, and so to bed.