"Then Lord Monmouth led the agitated Coningsby to the great lady, who was a Princess and an Ambassadress, and then, placing his arm gracefully in that of his grandson, he led him across the room, and presented him in due form to some royal blood that was his guest, in the shape of a Russian Grand Duke. His Imperial Highness received our hero as graciously as the grandson of Lord Monmouth might expect; but no greeting can be imagined warmer than the one he received from the lady with whom the Grand Duke was conversing. She was a dame whose beauty was mature, but still radiant. Her figure was superb; her dark hair crowned with a tiara of curious workmanship. Her rounded arm was covered with costly bracelets, but not a jewel on her finely-formed bust, and the least possible rouge on her still oval cheek. Madame Colonna retained her charms." III Nearly a quarter of a century passed, during which Disraeli slowly rose to the highest honours in the State. Lord Derby died, and the novelist, already Leader of the House of Commons, found himself called to be Prime Minister of England. His first administration, however, was brief, and in the last days of 1868 he resigned in favour of Mr. Gladstone. The Liberals were in for five years, and Disraeli, in opposition, found a sort of tableland stretch in front of him after so much arduous climbing. It was at this moment, shortly after the resignation of the Tory Minister, that the publisher of a magazine approached him with the request that he would write a novel to appear in its pages. He was offered, it is said, a sum of money far in excess of what any one, at that time, had ever received for "serial rights." Disraeli refused the offer, but it may have drawn his thoughts back to literature, and in the course of 1869, after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was completed, he found time to write what is unquestionably the greatest of his literary works--the superb ironic romance of _Lothair_.