I was very glad to come home. I sang to them two or three things, but the piano was pitched too high for my voice; by the by, in that large, lofty, fine room, they had a tiny, old-fashioned, becurtained cabinet piano stuck right against the wall, unto which the singer's face was turned, and into which his voice was absorbed. We had hardly regained our inn and uncloaked, when there came a tap at the door, and in walked Mr. ---- to ask me if we would not join them (himself and the ----) at supper. He said that, besides five being a great deal too early to dine, he had not half dinner enough; and then began the regular English quizzing of every thing and every body we had left behind. Oh dear, oh dear! how thoroughly English it was, and how it reminded me of H----; of course, we did not accept their invitation, but it furnished me matter of amusement. How we English folks do cling to our own habits, our own views, our own things, our own people; how, in spite of all our wanderings and scatterings over the whole face of the earth, like so many Jews, we never lose our distinct and national individuality; nor fail to lay hold of one another's skirts, to laugh at and depreciate all that differs from that country, which we delight in forsaking for any and all others. _Sunday, 16th._ Rose at eight. After breakfast, walked to church with the C----s and Mr. B----. They went to Grace Church for the music; we stopped short to go to the ---- pew in the Episcopal church. The pew was crammed, I am sorry to say, owing to our being there, which they had pressed so earnestly, that we thought ourselves bound to accept the invitation. The sermon was tolerably good; better than the average sermons one hears in London, and sufficiently well delivered. After church, I---- called, also two men of the name of M----, large men, very! also Mr. B---- and Mr. C----: when they were all gone, wrote journal, and began a letter to J----. Dined at five; after dinner, went on with my letter to J----, and wrote an immense one to dear H----, which kept me pen in hand till past twelve. A tremendous thunderstorm came on, which lasted from nine o'clock till past two in the morning: I never saw but one such in my life; and that was our memorable Weybridge storm, which only exceeded this in the circumstance of my having seen a thunderbolt fall during that paroxysm of the elements. But this was very glorious, awful, beautiful, and tremendous. The lightning played without the intermission of a second, in wide sheets of purple glaring flame, that trembled over the earth for nearly two or three seconds at a time; making the whole world, river, sky, trees, and buildings, look like a ghostly universe cut out in chalk. The light over the water, which absolutely illumined the shore on the other side with the broad glare of full day, was of a magnificent purple colour. The night was pitchy dark, too; so that between each of these ghastly smiles of the devil, the various pale steeples and