have made excuses in it; but, seeing him so earnest
in it, I found myself forced to it, and so did tell him Mr. Pierce;
the chyrurgeon, in that of his Lordship's living being discoursed of at
Court; a mayd servant that-I kept, that lived at Chelsy school; and also
Mr. Pickering, about the report touching the young woman; and also Mr.
Hunt, in Axe Yard, near whom she lodged. I told him the whole city
do discourse concerning his neglect of business; and so I many times
asserting my dutifull intention in all this, and he owning his accepting
of it as such. That that troubled me most in particular is, that he
did there assert the civility of the people of the house, and the young
gentlewoman, for whose reproach he was sorry. His saying that he was
resolved how to live, and that though he was taking a house, meaning to
live in another manner, yet it was not to please any people, or to stop
report, but to please himself, though this I do believe he might say
that he might not seem to me to be so much wrought upon by what I have
writ; and lastly, and most of all, when I spoke of the tenderness that
I have used in declaring this to him, there being nobody privy to it,
he told me that I must give him leave to except one. I told him that
possibly somebody might know of some thoughts of mine, I having borrowed
some intelligence in this matter from them, but nobody could say they
knew of the thing itself what I writ. This, I confess, however, do
trouble me, for that he seemed to speak it as a quick retort, and it
must sure be Will. Howe, who did not see anything of what I writ, though
I told him indeed that I would write; but in this, I think, there is no
great hurt. I find him, though he cannot but owne his opinion of my
good intentions, and so, he did again and again profess it, that he
is troubled in his mind at it; and I confess, I think I may have done
myself an injury for his good, which, were it to do again, and that
I believed he would take it no better, I think I should sit quietly
without taking any notice of it, for I doubt there is no medium between
his taking it very well or very ill. I could not forbear weeping before
him at the latter end, which, since, I am ashamed of, though I cannot
see what he can take it to proceed from but my tenderness and good
will to him. After this discourse was ended, he began to talk very,
cheerfully of other things, and I walked with him to White Hall, and we
discoursed of the pictures in