More chilly. I fulfilled my appointment with Mr Kuntse, and he finished his work in about half an hour. I then looked at it fully for the first time. He does not seem to me to have succeeded. The expression is not mine, if I am competent to give an opinion in the case. The remainder of my day was wasted in the unaccountable manner which sometimes happens with me. I completed the reading of Mr Senior’s Diary. He introduces Miss Curtis of Boston twice, each time speaking in derogation of Americans and American affairs. Miss Curtis is a fine woman, but I fancy she will scarcely relish this shape of immortality. Brooks came back from school sick. Henry and Mary went to Mr Sturgis’s to pass Sunday. We dinner, Mr and Mrs Wainwright263 of New York, and my two Secretaries. The former are about returning home. In the course of the conversation a remark was made by Mr Wilson which went far to explain the cause of his appointment, and of Mr Seward’s action. According to him Governor Pennington was pressing Mr Lincoln very hard for the place for his son. And Lincoln was weak enough to promise it. Mr Seward learning this sent for Wilson who had been pressing with some urgency for another Office which he could not get, and urged him to put in for this, whilst he turned Penington over to the post in France. So I had a lucky escape. For Mr Wilson, though not a finished diplomat is thus far unexceptionable in all his conduct. A thing, which I fear, is not to be said of Penington. But then what are we to think of the President, as the head of a great nation?