Cloudy and threatening with heavy rain at night. My morning was passed in a good measure in reading the volume of Diary which Mr Senior has been so polite as to send me. It is purely a record of conversations held with leading men in France, at he various visits he made to their Estates in the country, last Sumner. As a transcript of the feelings prevailing in a certain class it is valuable, but that class consists mainly of the malcontents, enemies of the reigning Emperor. I think I understand a little more of the actual state of Europe, but that is not very encouraging. Some comments of M Guiot upon the policy of Great Britain, and the direction of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, struck me as singularly felicitous. Mr Senior himself passes them without a word of remark. I walked with my daughter Mary and son Brooks who came in from school to spend the Sunday, in Kensington Gardens. Mrs Adams and I dined with Mr and Mrs Milnes Gaskell. Another wholly new company of whom I knew only Lord Glenelg who was presented to me. Our host is a member of Parliament and his Wife has been much acquainted with Mr Everett, to which I own some of their civility, I suppose. The carriage came so late that we could not go to Lady Derby’s, which I much regretted.183