The Russians are very proud of Peterhof, call it a "petit Versailles," and "petit" it certainly is in comparison; but the park is pretty, well laid out, with terraces and gardens, and the water-works really very good indeed. A very good Circassian band was playing, and a good many people walking about. What was lovely and quite unlike Versailles were the glimpses of the sea one had on all sides. We got carriages and drove all about. We went into the big Palace, where the present Emperor never lives. He prefers a small place, half farm, half cottage, close to the sea, and lives there quite contentedly and quietly like an ordinary country gentleman. However we couldn't get anywhere near that villa--the gates and alleys were closed, and guards and soldiers everywhere. We dined very badly at a restaurant we had been told of on the sea, and took the 10 o'clock boat home. The return was enchanting--a beautiful starlight night, and fresh, soft breeze. I had a nice talk with Mdme. Jaures, who told me a good deal of Russian ways and life. I think she is glad to go back to France, and "au fond" there are very few French women who care to _live_ abroad altogether. After three or four years they get homesick for their own country. She asked me if I was never homesick for America--but I told her I had been so long away, and my life had been such a full one that I sometimes asked myself was I the same little girl that used to run wild in the country at home with a donkey cart and a big Newfoundland dog. Those years seem so long ago the memory is getting duller. Sometimes I shut my eyes and see quite well the big white house with the piazzas, and the climbing roses, the cherry trees, and the white gate with the sharp turn, and the ditch where we upset so often in the sleighs--all the children tumbling out into the snow drift, and nobody minding. We got home at 11.30 and found letters, which we read quite easily at the window. It is a wonderful light--no one ever seems to think of going to bed. This morning we have been again at the Hermitage to finish the pictures. Decidedly the Rembrandts are the gems of the collection. There was one old man in a sort of fur robe and cap, with a wrinkled yellow face, whose eyes seemed quite alive, and followed us all round the room. We left W. with his medals and a sort of clerk attached to the Cabinet des Medailles. It seems they never leave anybody alone in the room with the medals. W. is delighted, he has found some rare coins he had never seen, and he means to have a good day's work, will not come back to breakfast with us.