with us, till near two o'clock; and upon a
remark being made about the much smaller consumption of refreshments
than on the occasion of our first party, D----, our butler, very
oracularly responded, "Quite a different class of people, sir;" which
mode of accounting for the more delicate appetite of our more
aristocratic guests, made with an ineffable air of cousinship to them
all, sent me into fits of laughing.

You ask me what I shall have to do from Monday till Wednesday, to fill
up my time and keep my thoughts from drowning themselves in crying. I
shall leave this house after breakfast for the _Clarendon_. I have a
great many small last articles to purchase, and shall visit all my
kindred once more. Then, too, the final packing for "board ship" will
take me some time, and I have some letters to write too. I dine with
Lady Dacre on Monday; they are to be alone except us and E---- and my
sister. I shall leave them at eight o'clock to go and sit with my father
till ten, his bed-time; and then return to Chesterfield Street [Lord
Dacre's]. As for Tuesday--Heaven alone knows how I shall get through it.

On Thursday last we dined with Sydney Smith, where we met Lord and Lady
Charlemont, Jeffrey, Frederick Byng, Dickens, Lady Stepney, and two men
whom I did not know,--a pleasant dinner; and afterwards we went to Mrs.
Dawson Damer's,--a large assembly, more than half of them strangers to
us....

On Friday morning Adelaide and E---- and we breakfasted with Rogers, to
meet Sydney Smith, Hallam, and his daughter and niece, the United States
Minister, Edward Everett, Empson, and Sir Robert Inglis. After breakfast
I went to see Charles Greville, who is again laid up with the gout, and
unable to move from his sofa. We dined with my sister, who had a large
party in the evening; and as the hour for breaking up arrived, and I saw
those pleasant kindly acquaintances pass one after another through the
door, I felt as if I was watching the vanishing of some pleasant vision.
The nearest and dearest of these phantasmagoria are yet round me; but in
three days the last will have disappeared from my eyes, for who can tell
how long? if not forever!

All day yesterday I was extremely unwell, but packed vehemently....

Charles Young, who is a most dear old friend of mine, and dotes upon my
children, came to see them off, and went with them to the railroad.
S---- begged for some of her grandfather's hair, but that he might not
be told it wa