B. DISRAELI. “Bertram Mitford, Esq.” That letter changed the whole course of my life. I wrote and congratulated Overbeck on his prophetic powers. His answer was, “You will get anything you wish.” One night at a party I told my future wife, Lady Clementine Ogilvy, the story, and when three months later we were betrothed, I sought all over London for a black opal for her, but there was not one to be had; the fame of my stone had somehow or other been spread abroad and everybody was mad to buy its fellow. When she went to Paris with her mother, trousseau buying, I commissioned her to hunt for a black opal, which she did, and brought home a beautiful specimen which she still has—and on the day that she bought it I concluded the purchase of the house in Chelsea, where we were to spend so many happy years. We are old folk now, the ink of Dizzy’s note, which I treasure, has faded almost into nothingness, and my poor black opal was stolen some seven years ago by burglars—but not before it had well and truly done its appointed work. We were married on the 31st of December, 1874, in the little chapel of Cortachy Castle. Had the wedding been fixed for a day later there would have been no bridegroom, for all the trains in Scotland were held up by a terrific blizzard, and the New Year’s hampers were looted to feed the passengers, who were starved with cold and hunger. At the wedding breakfast I told the story of the black opal to the late Lord Southesk, a famous collector of gnostic gems, perhaps sharing Bartolommeo Scala’s belief in the mystic virtues of precious stones. “Ah! wonderful!” he said. “How little we know about the influence of gems! Perhaps——” Someone interrupted, and to my regret he was prevented from finishing the sentence. People said it was a very pretty wedding—and so it must have been, in that glorious old castle with the richly-wooded river Esk running under its walls, as it had done for seven centuries—but a bridegroom, I take it, does not see much on his wedding-day.