After lunch Lady Jersey (who is charming, very intelligent, and interested in everything) showed us the house. Beautiful pictures and old furniture, a massive silver table that was the dressing table of Queen Elizabeth. Of course we hadn't time to really see all the interesting things in the house, as it was getting late, and we still had a fair drive before us. Notwithstanding the good and late luncheon we were very glad to have tea when we got home. I certainly eat much more here, I suppose it is the climate, and then the food is a little different from what we are accustomed to, and I think very good. The hunt ball was really very pretty, the ballroom well arranged with foxes' heads, brushes, etc., all the men in pink. Everyone was "en train," and everybody of all ages dancing. I should think W. and D. were the only men in the room who didn't dance. They went home about 12, but H. and I stayed until 2. We heard afterward that the Master of Hounds was much depressed all the evening, as he knew he must take the French Ambassadress to supper (of course, he didn't know that I was American born, and could speak English), and the prospect of a long conversation in French with a woman he didn't know filled him with dismay. However we made friends (in English), and I hope he didn't find the supper hour too tiresome. There are two reasons why an Englishman hates to speak French; first, a sort of natural timidity which they all have more or less, and then a decided objection to doing anything he doesn't want to do, or which bores him. This country is certainly a Paradise for men, from the nursery days when all the women of the household--nurses, maids, and sisters, are slaves of the boys, to manhood, when equally all the women do exactly what the men want, and regulate their lives to suit the men of the family, who have everything their own way. #London#, February, 1884. I made my debut in the official world last night at a reception at Mr. Gladstone's in Downing Street. There were four large men's dinners (and receptions afterward) for the opening of Parliament. Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone, Ministerial; Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, "Her Majesty's Opposition."