had
exhibited them.

Never did he exert himself more to please a crowded and admiring
audience than to amuse this child, who, maintaining an immovable
gravity during the imitations, quietly observed to her nurse, "_Ma
bonne, ce Monsieur est bien drole_."

The mortification of Mr. Mathews on this occasion was very diverting.
"How!" exclaimed he, "is it possible that all my efforts to amuse that
child have so wholly failed? She never moved a muscle! I suppose the
French children are not so easily pleased as our English men and women
are?"

He reverted to this disappointment more than once during our drive
back, and seemed dispirited by it. Nevertheless, he gave us some most
humorous imitations of the lower orders of the French talking loudly
together, in which he spoke in so many different voices that one could
have imagined that no less than half-a-dozen people, at least, were
engaged in the conversation.

I think so highly of the intellectual powers of Mr. Mathews, and find
his conversation so interesting that, admirable as are his imitations,
I prefer the former. He has seen so much of the world in all its
phases, that he has a piquant anecdote or a clever story to relate
touching every place and almost every person mentioned. Yet, with all
this intuitive and acquired knowledge of the world, he possesses all
the simplicity of a child, and a good nature that never can resist an
appeal to it.

Spent all yesterday in reading, and writing letters on business. I
begin to experience the _ennui_ of having affairs to attend to, and
groan in spirit, if not aloud, at having to read and write dry details
on the subject. To unbend my mind from its painful thoughts and
tension, I devoted the evening to reading, which affords me the surest
relief, by transporting my thoughts from the cares that oppress me.

Had a long visit from my old acquaintance the Count de Montalembert,
to-day. He is in very low spirits, occasioned by the recent death of an
only and charming daughter, and could not restrain his deep emotion,
when recounting to me the particulars of her latter days. His grief was
contagious, and found a chord in my heart that responded to it. When we
last met, it was in a gay and brilliant party, each of us in high
spirits; and now, though but a few more years have passed over our
heads, how changed are our feelings! We meet, not to amuse and to be
amused, but to talk of those we have lost, and whose loss has darkened