The King gave W. his audience to-day at one. He went off most properly attired, _with_ his Italian ribbon. He generally forgets to put on his orders, and was decidedly put out one day in Paris when he arrived at a royal reception _without_ the decoration the sovereign had just sent him. The explanation was difficult--he could hardly tell the King he had forgotten. W. got back again a little after two, and said the interview was pleasant enough--the King very gracious, and he supposed, for him, talkative; though there were long pauses in the conversation--he leaning on his sword, with his hands crossed on the hilt as his father always did--spoke about the Queen, said she was in Rome, and he believed Madame Waddington had known her when she was Princess de Piedmont. I never was presented to her--saw her only from a distance at some of the balls. I remember her quite well at a ball at the Teanos in a blue dress, with her beautiful pearls. I hope she will receive us. He talked less politics than the Pope; said France and Italy, the two great Latin races, ought to be friends, and deplored the extreme liberty of the press; knew also that W. was in Rome for the first time, and hoped he would have fine weather. He did not ask him anything about his interview with the Pope. W. said the reception was quite simple--nothing like the state and show of the Vatican. There was a big porter at the door of the palace, two or three servants on the stairs, and two officers, aides-de-camp, in the small salon opening into the King's cabinet. Soon after he came in we had visits--Hooker, Monsignor English, a French priest, head of St. Louis des Français, and Del Monte, whom I hadn't yet seen. He was so nice and friendly--doesn't look really much older, though he says he feels so. I told him it seemed unnatural not to have a piano. He would have brought his cello, and we could have plunged into music and quite forgotten how many years had passed since we first played and sang the "Stella Confidente." [Illustration: King Humbert of Italy.]