January-June, 1668 Summary

The New Year brings a price hike in the city. Rents have already increased, due to the cost of rebuilding much of the city. Now theater ticket prices go up. Pepys attends a gambling party with friends and, even when pressed, refuses to gamble. He presents gifts to his Valentines, including his wife. He also receives money for a kindness that he does not remember performing. He consents to pay his alumni fees at Magdalene College. The city wonders at an astronomical anomaly, some sort of meteor in the sky.

Pepys responds to a call form his cousin, whose husband dies after throwing himself into a fountain. If the death is ruled a suicide, the King inherits all that the man possessed. Pepys petitions that the death be ruled accidental, which it is, and the widow retains the estate.

Pepys' eyes worsen, prompting...