able passage that, Lewellen being gone, and I going into
the office, and it begun to be dark, I found nobody there, my clerks
being at the burial of a child of W. Griffin's, and so I spent a little
time till they came, walking in the garden, and in the mean time, while
I was walking Mrs. Pen's pretty maid came by my side, and went into the
office, but finding nobody there I went in to her, being glad of the
occasion. She told me as she was going out again that there was nobody
there, and that she came for a sheet of paper. So I told her I would
supply her, and left her in the office and went into my office and
opened my garden door, thinking to have got her in, and there to have
caressed her, and seeming looking for paper, I told her this way was as
near a way for her, but she told me she had left the door open and so
did not come to me. So I carried her some paper and kissed her, leading
her by the hand to the garden door and there let her go. But, Lord! to
see how much I was put out of order by this surprisal, and how much I
could have subjected my mind to have treated and been found with this
wench, and how afterwards I was troubled to think what if she should
tell this and whether I had spoke or done any thing that might be unfit
for her to tell. But I think there was nothing more passed than just
what I here write.

13th (Lord's day). Up and made me ready for Church, but my wife and I
had a difference about her old folly that she would fasten lies upon her
mayds, and now upon Jane, which I did not see enough to confirm me in
it, and so would not consent to her. To church, where after sermon
home, and to my office, before dinner, reading my vowes, and so home to
dinner, where Tom came to me and he and I dined together, my wife not
rising all day, and after dinner I made even accounts with him, and
spent all the afternoon in my chamber talking of many things with him,
and about Wheately's daughter for a wife for him, and then about the
Joyces and their father Fenner, how they are sometimes all honey one
with another and then all turd, and a strange rude life there is among
them. In the evening, he gone, I to my office to read Rushworth upon
the charge and answer of the Duke of Buckingham, which is very fine, and
then to do a little business against to-morrow, and so home to supper to
my wife, and then to bed.

14th. Up by candlelight, which I do not use to do, though it be very
late, that is to say almost 8 o'clock,