I will finish now as we have come home fairly early from the Pallavicini reception. We dined at home and started off about 10. We went to get Gert, and on arriving about 10.30 found ourselves almost the first people. Felice Malatesta was there, also Del Monte. Both being "Gardes-Nobles" they can only come early and not run the risk of meeting any of the Court people nor diplomatists to the Quirinal. Princess Pallavicini is one of the Queen's ladies, but she is such an old friend of both gentlemen that they always go to her. Among the first arrivals was Massari. He and W. and Prince Pallavicini had a nice talk, and it amused me to see the people come in. There were about 30 (I knew a good many of the Romans, but of course the Court people and Deputies were strangers to me), Wimpffens, Noailles, St. Asilea, Somaglias, and a sprinkling of young diplomatists. As soon as the White diplomatists began to appear Del Monte and Malatesta departed. I had a talk with Villamarina who is very musical, also with Vitelleschi. The party broke up early--there was no music nor dancing (not even the little informal "tour de valse" there used to be in our days) and we were home before 12 o'clock. W. enjoyed his evening--talked principally to the men.
W. is off this morning with Father Smith to San Clemente. I was lazy as I was out all day yesterday. In the morning W. and I walked to the Palazzo dei Cesari, and stayed there two hours walking about and sitting down in the nice sunny places. It was beautifully bright, a splendid blue sky, but cold, a sharp wind, very unusual they say for the end of March. One gets a very fair walk on the Palatine Hill. There is so much to see, and the little irregular paths running up and down from the various temples and ruined buildings of all kinds give one plenty of exercise. It needs a good deal of imagination to reconstruct all the temples, tribunes, porticoes, and palaces which existed in the days of Imperial Rome, but there are still bits of coloured marble, faded frescoes, mosaics, tops of columns and broken statues in every direction. W. was quite happy--he had already spent a morning there with Lanciani, and so could show me what was still well enough preserved for me to understand. The view from the terrace over Rome and the Campagna was beautiful--the mountains seemed so near. We didn't walk home as we found a botta which had just brought up a party of forestieri--French this time, with a young priest, who was evidently the guide.