With this has gone our last hope of any salvage from the wreck of our property. Dillon's "perfect gentlemen," of whom he expressed himself so proud in the House the other night, had evidently broken open H.'s great official desk, and found the key of the safe and abstracted my jewel-case, F.'s field-glasses and several other of his much-prized possessions, and then locked the safe again. The only document they stole from among the official documents was F.'s commission. Why, we cannot imagine, unless the fact that it bore the King's signature made it worthy of special insult and desecration. H. was very sad when he told me, but I think I am past caring about any possessions now. F. and all his precious things are gone. Nothing else seems worth considering. Perhaps some day we may pluck up heart to collect things again around us, but at present one can only feel, "Let the dead bury the dead." _20th._ To-day they are beginning on the excavations of H.'s room; the fire burnt with such ferocity that there is much less rubble in it than one would imagine. As you probably remember, H.'s room was on the first floor, with a storey above it. When the whole place fell in, H.'s room fell through into the room below, and a portion of that had fallen through to the cellars. The men are removing everything of the nature of bricks and iron and stone coping of the roof, and then four extra-careful men are to be put on to shovel up the rest of the _débris_, which is burnt to powder, and Noblett, H.'s confidential messenger, is going to be there to receive anything of ours that may be found. _23rd._