bedience for him, I shall never believe you have more than an ordinary
kindness for me; since (if you will pardon me the comparison) I believe
we both merit it from you upon the same score, he as a very indulgent
father, and I as a very kind mistress. Don't laugh at me for commending
myself, you will never do it for me, and so I am forced to it.

I am still here in town, but had no hand, I can assure you, in the new
discovered plot against the Protector. But my Lord of Dorchester, they
say, has, and so might I have had if I were as rich as he, and then you
might have been sure of me at the Tower;--now a worse lodging must serve
my turn. 'Tis over against Salisbury House where I have the honour of
seeing my Lady M. Sandis every day unless some race or other carry her
out of town. The last week she went to one as far as Winchester with
Col. Paunton (if you know such a one), and there her husband met her,
and because he did so (though it 'twere by accident) thought himself
obliged to invite her to his house but seven miles off, and very
modestly said no more for it, but that he thought it better than an Inn,
or at least a crowded one as all in the town were now because of the
race. But she was so good a companion that she would not forsake her
company. So he invited them too, but could prevail with neither. Only my
Lady grew kind at parting and said, indeed if Tom Paunton and J. Morton
and the rest would have gone she could have been contented to have taken
his offer. Thus much for the married people, now for those that are
towards it.

There is Mr. Stanley and Mrs. Witherington; Sir H. Littleton and Mrs.
Philadelphia Carey, who in earnest is a fine woman, such a one as will
make an excellent wife; and some say my Lord Rich and my Lady Betty
Howard, but others that pretend to know more say his court to her is but
to countenance a more serious one to Mrs. Howard, her sister-in-law, he
not having courage to pretend so openly (as some do) to another's wife.
Oh, but your old acquaintance, poor Mr. Heningham, has no luck! He was
so near (as he thought at least) marrying Mrs. Gerherd that anybody
might have got his whole estate in wagers upon't that would have
ventured but a reasonable proportion of their own. And now he looks more
like an ass than ever he did. She has cast him off most unhandsomely,
that's the truth on't, and would have tied him to such conditions as he
might have been her slave withal, but could never be her h