During the month following Mr. Curzon's appointment to the governor-generalship he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Curzon of Kedleston. As the name in which he had made his reputation, he desired to retain Curzon in his title. The eldest son of Earl Howe being Viscount Curzon, however, he was obliged to agree to two conditions imposed by Lord Howe,--first, to be known now as Curzon of Kedleston, and, second, on succeeding to his father's title, to drop Curzon Kedleston, which was never to be resumed either by himself or his heirs. A new life, quite unlike anything she had known, now opened before Lady Curzon,--a life of real power over millions of subjects, a life of significant ceremonial and regal pomp, in which this daughter of a republic assumed with her husband the leading _rôle_. She entered completely into its spirit, planning all the details of a sumptuous existence which is so highly gratifying to an Eastern people and in such perfect accord with its conceptions of power. India likes to see the outward form of empire, and measures thereby its internal strength. Lady Curzon was already familiar with the political and historical side of the country whither fortune was leading her. For her acquaintance with its social side, which more especially concerned her, she equipped herself with that same faultless taste that had marked her career in the society of her own country and England. With the lavish hospitality she had in contemplation, she ordered, several weeks before her departure from England, thousands of cards of invitation for dinners, evening receptions, and garden-parties, including menu cards and ball programmes. For all of these occasions she provided herself with the appropriate habiliments whose exquisite details, the art with which they were chosen, and the genius with which they were worn, becoming identified with her personal beauty, acquired shortly after her appearance in Calcutta a fame as wide as the empire. Her last days in England foreshadowed the glories of her life in India. At a ball given at Welbeck Abbey by the Duke and Duchess of Portland in honor of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, shortly before her departure, Lady Curzon of Kedleston, whose grace had once given charm to many an American ball-room, was among the few honored with a place in the royal quadrille. While the Portlands do not entertain often, they enjoy the reputation of having the most sumptuous social functions that are witnessed anywhere in England. Their supper-tables glitter with a gold service of great artistic and intrinsic value, and their spacious picture-gallery makes a ball-room whose attractiveness is seldom rivalled.