'We did not agree upon any point, for his opinions upon all things, especially hanging, were the exact opposite of my own. He talked of "our dear old British gallows." But we got on well, and I was one of those who greatly regretted his breakdown, which occurred some ten years later. He and Leslie Stephen were the sons of Sir James Stephen, Professor of History at Cambridge--very unlike one another in early life, when J. F. Stephen was a fat, half-Whig, half-Tory lawyer and _Saturday Reviewer_, and Leslie a starved-looking, free-thinking Radical parson, afterwards to throw off his Orders. As they grew old they became much alike in appearance, and in opinion.' There is a note of spending a Sunday in March 'at Aston Clinton, with the widow of Sir Anthony de Rothschild and her daughter, Mrs. Cyril Flower, afterwards Lady Battersea. 'Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild and his wife came to dinner, and, well knowing as I did two other members of the family, I could see how strangely like a Royal family the Rothschilds are in one respect-- namely, that they all quarrel with one another, but are united as against the world. When Cyril Flower, in 1878, made a speech unfriendly to the Government, but not more so than might naturally be expected at that time from a Liberal member, Baron Lionel sent for him, and told him that it was "wicked and abominable for him to attack a man who had been a poor Jew and was now the greatest man in England." "In Europe, papa," cut in Nathaniel, who was present at this public cursing. 'From March 15th to the 17th I stayed at York House with the Grant Duffs, where I met the Marquis and Marquise de la Ferronnays, Henry Cowper, Minto, Lord Reay, and Herbert Spencer. La Ferronnays was at this time Military Attaché at the French Embassy, but resigned as soon as the Republic became consolidated, and, being elected to the Chamber, was soon the fighting leader of the high Tory party--a not clever, but excellent gentleman, like the others. 'On Monday, March 31st, I dined at the Harcourts', but, alas I this time no Schouvalof. His place was occupied by Rancez, the Spanish Minister, who had the same diplomatic capacity for concealing the truth while talking with equal apparent frankness, but who was less amusing. 'On Monday, April 7th, I dined with Lord and Lady Arthur Russell, to meet old Lady Russell. I had seen her once before at Pembroke Lodge, and once at Harcourt's at dinner, on both of which previous occasions I had seen Lord Russell too--a shadow of his former self.... On this occasion Lady Russell was alone, Lord Russell having died in the previous year. [Footnote: In 1878.] The old lady was pleasant, and gave me a general invitation to come to Pembroke Lodge any or every Sunday, an invitation of which I afterwards availed myself.