Mr Erickson the other day incidentally expressed a decided opinion that the health of my daughter Mary needed confirmation by a winter passed in a more genial climate. I have had similar thoughts passing in my own mind. On consultation with my Wife, we leave to an earlier departure than we had contemplated. If the government do not consent to relieve me than I must stay behind. In any event it is pretty clear that our present establishment must before long be broken up. This gives me an impression of impending change which depresses me. At home all day, suffering a little from a cold. I find myself more susceptible to those than ever before in this country. Wrote a note of condolence to Mrs Dayton, and others notes. Read also a file of the American papers, which impress me more and more with an impression of some change in the character of the war. Walk through the weather was not propitious. Evening, Brooks and young Forbes came to spend Sunday. Read aloud part of Dickens’s Christmas Story.