To town to prepare the usual Despatches of the week. The interest in affairs here has for the time at least ceased entirely. Yet there remains much ordinary detail that absorbs time. Wrote to my son Charles, and returned to Ealing by the train at five o’clock. The days have however become now so short that this visit takes up all the sunlight. Found Mr E L Stanley at the house, just returned from America, who dined with us, and returned in the evening.136