A clear, sunny morning with a bright hoar frost spangling all the ground and the tops of houses. I had a brief morning at home prior to setting out in company with Mrs Adams and two servants on a visit to Mr Denison, the speaker of the House of commons. at his place of Ossington in Nottinghamshire. Our way was by the Northern railway from King’s cross Station through Hitchin and Huntingdon and Peterborough to a place285 called Tuxford where we found the speaker’s carriage waiting, which drove us about seven miles to his house. The only incident was the necessity of getting out of one train of carriages and walking across a broken bridge of another which kept us waiting for it in the cold for half an hour. The place was quite exposed, so that we were all much chilled by the sharp wind. In these matters they are certainly less prompt here than at home. As the carriages are not warmed, the resource is to slip tin cases of hot water under the feet which answers the purpose of keeping up the circulation. When we reached Grantham the snow began to fall, and the drive from Tuxford to Ossington was very like one in December in New England. We were kindly received by Lady Charlotte Denison and soon after Mr Denison came in with the Bishop of Oxford, Our party at dinner consisted in addition to the parties named, of Lord Stratford de Radcliffe, his Wife and two daughters, of Lady Louisa Percy and of Mr Charles Howard. The conversation was lively and spirited, mainly carried on by the Bishop who is genial and amusing. After dinner we sat down to whist The Bishop, the Lord, the Speaker and myself. We played short whist, and the Bishop proposed to reduce the stakes to sixpence a point. I won a shilling, the first time I ever played for money in my life! I could not but be amused at the idea of being so late in my career drawn in to gamble on the suggestion of a Bishop of the Established church.