Cloudy but it did not rain. Busy bringing up arrears. Received a very friendly note from Lord Russell covering another from Lord Stanhope complaining of the suppression by the Times of His Lordship’s allusion to me in the debate of Thursday, and the reception it met with by the Lords. The act of the Times is nothing, but I value the other testimony which it started. A friendly note from Mrs Milnes is also a grain of salt which should go to leaven the heap of aversion to America so visible here. At two o’clock the visit to stoke park took place which has been so strangely interpolated into yesterday’s record.133 The truth is that I cannot entirely keep up with the time when the entries are long, and at the end of the week there will be arrears. I resume the narration with our return home at seven o’clock. Here we found Elizabeth C. Adams who had come from Oxford with her brother. This makes us a formidable household for the present week. Mrs Adams and I went to dine with Mr and Mrs Moffat. The company so far as I knew it consisted of Mrs Vaughn, a lady of the Queen’s household, Mr and Mrs Ford who seem to be of the English Diplomatic service, Mr Massey, Mr and Mrs Milner Gibson, Mr C P Villiers, Mr Thackeray, and one or two unknown. There was more wine drank and we sat later at table than usual, so that it was nearly midnight before we got home.