On Wednesday I go for the first time to Westminster Abbey, on Epiphany, to hear the Athanasian Creed chanted. I have as yet had no time for sight-seeing, as the days are so short that necessary visits take all my time. No one goes out in a carriage till after two, as the servants dine at one, and in the morning early the footman is employed in the house. A coachman never leaves his box here, and a footman is indispensable on all occasions. No visit can be paid till three; and this gives me very little time in these short days. Everything here is inflexible as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and though I am called “Mistress” even by old Cates with his grey hair and black coat, I cannot make one of them do anything, except _by_ the person and _at_ the time which English custom prescribes. They are brought up to fill certain situations, and fill them perfectly, but cannot or will not vary. I am frequently asked by the ladies here if I have formed a household to please me and I am obliged to confess that I have a very nice household, but that I am the only refractory member of it. I am always asking the wrong person for coals, etc., etc. The division of labor, or rather ceremonies, between the butler and footman, I have now mastered I believe in some degree, but that between the _upper_ and _under_ house-maid is still a profound mystery to me, though the upper has explained to me for the twentieth time that she did only “the top of the work.” My cook comes up to me every morning for orders, and always drops the deepest curtsey, but then I doubt if her hands are ever profaned by touching a poker, and she _never_ washes a dish. She is cook and _housekeeper_, and presides over the housekeeper’s room; which has a Brussels carpet and centre table, with one side entirely occupied by the linen presses, of which my maid (my vice-regent, only _much_ greater than me) keeps the key and dispenses every towel, even for the kitchen. She keeps lists of everything and would feel bound to replace anything missing. I shall make you laugh and Mrs. Goodwin stare, by some of my housekeeping stories, the next evening I pass in your little pleasant parlor (a word unknown here). _To W. D. B. and A. B._ LONDON, January 10, 1847. MY VERY DEAR CHILDREN: . . . Yesterday we dined at Lady Charleville’s, the old lady of eighty-four, at whose house I mentioned an evening visit in my last, and I must tell you all about it to entertain dear Grandma. I will be minute for once, and give you the _little_ details of a London dinner, and they are all precisely alike. We arrived at Cavendish Square a quarter before seven (very early) and were shown into a semi-library on the same floor with the dining-room. The servants take your cloak, etc., in the passage, and I am never shown into a room with a mirror as with us, and never into a chamber or bedroom.