Morning dark and rainy. I went to the Office as usual, and was very much occupied in preparing my Accounts due at the close of this 393Quarter and in drawing up my Letter in explanation of the Affairs of the whole year,1 which engrossed all the time I had at my disposal, and more too, for I was taken up for two or three hours with an attempt to arrange the difference between my Clients and the person they had sued, but the whole conversation resulted in nothing, and I returned home some time after my dinner hour. The Afternoon was spent in the same manner copying what I had done in the morning. This work is on the whole rather tedious and somewhat exclusive, for it puts an entire stop to the regular train of study which is my delight.

Evening, we were just going on with our usual French studies when we were interrupted by Chapman my Classmate who came and passed a tolerably agreeable evening. I went on afterwards with my Catalogue and read two numbers of the Tatler. How different from the evening of last year. Yet to me how much more pleasant.