Other old customs have not been revived, but we may learn some of these from old makers of Notes, and specially from Pepys, as to the old methods of choosing, or avoiding to choose, Valentines. When he went early on Valentine’s Day to Sir W. Batten’s, he says he would not go in “till I asked whether they that opened the doors was a man or a woman; and Mingo who was there, answered, a woman, which, with his tone, made me laugh; so up I went, and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency); and Sir W. Batten, he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry.” On the following anniversary the diarist tells us that Will Bowyer came to be his wife’s Valentine, “she having (at which I made good sport to myself) held her hands all the morning, that she might not see the painters that were at work gilding my chimney-piece and pictures in my dining-room.” It would seem, moreover, that a man was not free from the pleasing pains of Valentineship when the festival day was over. On Shrove Tuesday, March 3rd, 1663, after dinner, says Pepys, “Mrs. The. showed me my name upon her breast as her Valentine, which,” he added, “will cost me 30_s._” Again, in 1667, a fortnight after the actual day Pepys was with his wife at the Exchange, “and there bought things for Mrs. Pierce’s little daughter, my Valentine (which,” he says, “I was not sorry for, it easing me of something more than I must have given to others), and so to her house, where we find Knipp, who also challenged me for her Valentine;” of course, Pepys had to pay the usual homage in acknowledgment of such choice. Then, as Pepys had a little girl for Valentine, so boys were welcomed to early gallantry by the ladies. A thoroughly domestic scene is revealed to us on Valentine’s Day, 1665: “This morning comes betimes Dickie Pen, to be my wife’s Valentine, and came to our bedside. By the same token, I had been brought to my bedside thinking to have made him kiss me; but he perceived me, and would not, so went to his Valentine--a notable, stout, witty boy.” When a lady drew a Valentine, a gentleman so drawn would have been deemed shabby if he did not accept the honour and responsibility. On the 14th February, 1667, we have the following: “This morning called up by Mr. Hill, who, my wife thought, had come to be her Valentine--she, it seems, having drawn him; but it proved not. However, calling him up to our bedside, my wife challenged him.” Where men could thus intrude, boys like Dickie Pen could boldly go. Thus in 1667: “This morning came up to my wife’s bedside little Will Mercer, to be her Valentine; and brought her name writ upon blue paper, in gold letters, done by himself very pretty; and we were both well pleased with it.” The drawing of names and name-inscriptions were remnants of old customs before the Christian era. Alban Butler, under the head of “St. Valentine, Priest and Martyr,” says: