Of course everyone is talking and speculating about the Anglo-Russian question. W. thinks the English must fight, and that they will. I think this government, with Gladstone at its head, will never make up their minds to fight seriously or in time, judging from the way the Soudan campaign has been conducted. We have been driving all over the country, which is charming, flat, but all grass (Oxfordshire is a regular hunting country), and since three days the weather has been enchanting. Yesterday we made a lovely excursion to Blenheim on Deichmann's coach. We picked up 2 neighbours, nice, pretty English girls, and had a beautiful drive over the downs. Mimi had never been on a coach before, and was in a wild state of delight when all four horses galloped up the hills, and they blew the horns at all the railway stations and passing thro' the villages. I had forgotten how magnificent Blenheim was. The house is rather dismantled, as the present Duke has sold all the books and some of the handsomest pictures, but there are plenty left--Van Dycks, Rubens, etc., and the rooms and halls are splendid. There were lots of portraits of the Dukes and Duchesses, from the great Duke down, some curiously like the present Churchills, particularly the women. When we had finished sauntering through the house, we drove about the park looking for a shady place to lunch, and then established ourselves; the horses were taken out, the lunch basket opened, and we had a very good lunch on the top of the coach. We drove back through Woodstock and stopped for tea at Dashwood Park, one of the great places of the country. They gave us tea, with every variety of toast, cake, and bread that can be imagined, in a beautiful room as large as a church, opening on a stone terrace, and the most lovely (English) views of grass meadows and trees, stretching miles away. There were quantities of family portraits there, too, but we hadn't time to see them. We got home at 7 o'clock, rather exhausted, but having had a lovely day.