A fine, cheerful, clear day. My Diary is apt to fall into arrears now, so that I am obliged to devote some of my morning to making it up. At half past one dressed and started in the carriage with Mr Moran and my son Charles, to attend the second levee of the season, held by the Prince of Wales. The numbers were very considerable, but the higher class not much there. A new regulation of the Queen, dispensing with attendance more than once in a season has rather created indifference The corps Diplomatique generally there. The exception the Baron de Cetto, when King is just deceased. We got through, and home pretty early. The Prince and the Duke of Cambridge shook hands with me. The day is so far broken up by this idle ceremony, that little more was accomplished, but a long walk. I dined with Mrs Adams at Mr and Mrs Cardwell’s. A pleasant company nearly all of whom I knew. Lord and Lady Stanhope, Lord and Lady Loraine, Mr Fortescue and Lady Waldegrave, Sir Roundell and Lady Laura Palmer, Mr Vernon Harcourt and two others—one of whom I understood was Sir Michael Shaw Stuart. I sat between Mrs Cardwell and599 Lady Waldegrave. The last named is a curious instance of the freaks of chance even in the midst of an aristocracy. Yet she does her part as well as if she had been born to it. She talked with me as if she well comprehended the value of the society of which she is now a reigning favorite. She spoke of their feeling to America, which I had said, had given me much uneasiness when I first came. It was without cause. Although they made much noise, they had no control over events. The real power was in other questions. We left early to go to Lady Palmerston’s. A large assemblage with not so many of the acquaintance as usual. We got home after midnight.