It appears that married and single were then alike liable to be chosen as a Valentine; and that lady Valentines were honoured not by anonymous verses, but by substantial gifts. Four days after Pepys had chosen Martha Batten for his Valentine, he took her to the Exchange, and there, “upon a pair of embroidered, and six pair of plain white gloves, I laid out 40_s._” The question of expense troubled the diarist. When, in 1667, he took his wife for (honorary) Valentine, he wrote down the fact that it would cost him 5_l._; but he consoled himself by another fact, that he must have laid out as much “if we had not been Valentines.” The outlay at the hands of princes and courtiers was enormous. When the Duke of York was Miss Stewart’s Valentine, he gave her a jewel of about 800_l._ in value; and in 1667, Lord Mandeville, being that lady’s Valentine, presented her with a ring worth 300_l._ The gifts of Pepys to his wife look small by the side of presents made by lovers to ladies. Pepys came to an agreement with Mrs. Pepys to be her Valentine (which did not preclude others from being so) every year, “and this year,” he remarks, in 1668, “it is likely to cost 4_l._ or 5_l._ in a ring for her, which she desires.” In 1669, he bought more useful things for his cousin Turner, who told him she had drawn him for her Valentine. Straightway he went to the New Exchange, and bought her a pair of fashionable “green silk stockings, and garters, and shoe-strings, and two pairs of jessimy gloves, all coming to about 28_s._” London shops do not now exhibit green silk stockings, but they tempt buyers with gallant intentions; and “Valentine gifts” are in windows or on counters at prices to suit a few and terrify many.