We had a mild reception in the evening. Various friends came to say good-bye--Maquays, Peruzzis, Miss Forbes and one or two men. A scientific German--I forget his name--who told W. it would take weeks to see all the coins and interesting things of all kinds at the Milan Museum. We are very comfortable here; the hotel is old-fashioned with a nice open court, and the rooms good. We have a pretty apartment on the front, and as it is on the main thoroughfare, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, we see all that goes on. There is a church opposite--San Carlo, I believe--and we are not far from the Piazza del Duomo. We went for a little stroll last night after dinner, just for W. to smoke his cigar. The Cathedral looked splendid--a gigantic white mass in the midst of the busy square, quantities of people in the streets and sitting at all the cafes, of which there are hundreds--quite like the Paris boulevards on a summer night--everybody talking and laughing and a cheerful sound of clinking glasses. I think they were almost all drinking beer--a great many uniforms--I suppose there is a large garrison. There seemed very few foreigners--we heard nothing but Italian spoken--so unlike Rome and even Florence where one heard always so much English in the streets and the shops. They told me in Florence that there was a large English colony there, living quite apart from the fashionable world--children learning music, or some of the family delicate, needing a mild climate and sunshine--more perhaps in the villas close to the gates than in the town itself. I should think the cutting wind that sweeps the Lungarno would be mortal to weak chests; but up in the hills sheltered by the high walls and olive groves one would be quite protected. Certainly the other day on the terrace of Castello the sun was divine and the air soft and balmy, not a sign of chill or damp--but it was the month of May--the month for Florence.