I noted the same qualified sense of the news of the day in His Excellency's reception rooms. 'The company' was mainly American. For while English Ministers and statesmen and diplomats came and paid their respects, they passed away quickly, while His Excellency's own countrymen and countrywoman remained. I was there not long after the beginning of the reception but I met Lord Dufferin already coming away. England was talking, of course, of the news of the day; but there was none of the excitement and exuberance which would have been the dominating noteundersimilar circumstances at such a meeting at Rome or Florence or Paris or even at Vienna, and none of the quiet and matter-of-course assurance which one might have seen. at Berlin or Dresden or Leipzic.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.