The cold is quite sharp, and in this ancient house not a little uncomfortable. By some means or other I have got a cold, a thing very new to me since I have been in England. My morning was passed in uniting draughts to Despatches. The substance of Mr Seward’s only having reached me last evening. In order to write I was obliged to draw a little table close539 to the prejudice, to keep the flexibility of my hands. The sky was overcast all day, and the temperature a little higher, but the chill had penetrated more completely into the interior, in spite of all measures artificially to warm it. At no time has the glass fallen below ten degrees, which in Boston we should not esteem very severe. But our houses are better guarded, at least in turn. After luncheon, I went out alone, and having no fear of troubling any body, struck off boldly on a road which brought me at last to the little town of Steppingley—a curious old place which looked antiquated in all excepting the church. This did not look in keeping. The boys were all out on every piece of frozen water to be found, sleding or skating. The whole country is covered with frost, very much as it looks in America after an inch of snow. There was little or no wind, and the walking was excellent. It was coming on dark so fast that I pursued the road to Millbrook only in part, thus executing perhaps five miles of my expedition. The solitude of the country roads at night always makes me a little uneasy. A robbery could be so practicable. At home such a thought rarely occurred to me. Here I always think of it. In the evening, Lord Wensleydale had his whist table, with the same party, excepting that Mr Howard changed places with Mr Mildmay. The luck of the three evenings averaged fair all round. Mrs Mildmay is a woman of the world, and has seen a good deal of it. Her conversation is cultivated and shrewd. She amused me much at dinner with her account of meeting General and Mrs Eaton at Cadiz, when he was minister to Spain. It was not a flattering chapter in our Diplomatic history, and she had punctuated it entirely. So I was reduced to admitting and evading the truth. Considering every thing, the wonder is that our diplomacy is good as it is. We separated at midnight, and I parted with all, as I return to town in the morning.