or four times, and once did meet Mercer and another pretty lady, but being
surprized I could say little to them,, although I had an opportunity of
pleasing myself with them, but left them, and then I did see our Nell,
Payne's daughter, and her je did desire venir after me, and so elle did
see me to, Tower Hill to our back entry there that comes upon the degres
entrant into nostra garden . . . , and so parted, and je home to put up
things against to-morrow's carrier for my wife; and, among others, a very
fine salmon-pie, sent me by Mr. Steventon, W. Hewer's uncle, and so to
bed.

7th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to
dinner, and thither I sent for Mercer to dine with me, and after dinner
she and I called Mrs. Turner, and I carried them to the Duke of York's
house, and there saw "The Man's the Master," which proves, upon my seeing
it again, a very good play. Thence called Knepp from the King's house,
where going in for her, the play being done, I did see Beck Marshall come
dressed, off of the stage, and looks mighty fine, and pretty, and noble:
and also Nell, in her boy's clothes, mighty pretty. But, Lord! their
confidence! and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off
the stage, and how confident they are in their talk! Here I did kiss the
pretty woman newly come, called Pegg, that was Sir Charles Sidly's
mistress, a mighty pretty woman, and seems, but is not, modest. Here took
up Knepp into our coach, and all of us with her to her lodgings, and
thither comes Bannister with a song of hers, that he hath set in Sir
Charles Sidly's play for her, which is, I think, but very meanly set; but
this he did, before us, teach her, and it being but a slight, silly, short
ayre, she learnt it presently. But I did get him to prick me down the
notes of the Echo in "The Tempest," which pleases me mightily. Here was
also Haynes, the incomparable dancer of the King's house, and a seeming
civil man, and sings pretty well, and they gone, we abroad to Marrowbone,