however, would the estate have been bought or the monument erected upon it but for another singular accident, as romantic as the rest of his history. At Mount Braddon, at Torquay, there resided an elderly widowed lady named Mrs. Brydges Willyams. She was of Jewish birth, daughter and heiress of a certain Mendez da Costa, who traced his origin, like Disraeli, to a great family in Spain. Her husband, one of the Willyamses of Cornwall, who was a man of some note there, had died in 1820. His wife was left without children; she had no near relations, and with a large fortune at her own disposal. She was reputed, because perhaps she lived much in retirement, to be of eccentric habits. Being vain of her race, she was attracted by Disraeli's career, and she was interested in his writings. A Spanish Jewish origin was common to herself and to him, and some remote connection could, I have heard, be traced between the House of Lara, from which Disraeli descended, and her own, Mendez da Costa. At last, at the beginning of 1851, she wrote to him, professing general admiration and asking for his advice on some matter of business. [Sidenote: A ROMANTIC ADVENTURE] Men whose names are before the world often receive letters of this kind from unknown correspondents. Disraeli knew nothing of Mrs. Willyams, and had no friends at Torquay whom he could ask about her. He threw the letter in the fire and thought no more of it. The lady persevered. Disraeli happened about the same time to be on a visit to Monckton Milnes at Frystone; one of the party was a Devonshire man, and Disraeli asked him if he knew anything of a mad woman living in Torquay named Willyams. The gentleman, though not personally acquainted with Mrs. Willyams, was able to assure him that, though eccentric, she certainly was not mad. The lady, when the first Great Exhibition was opened, wrote again, pressing for an interview, and appointing as a place of meeting the fountain in the Exhibition building. The Disraeli of practical life was as unlike as possible to the heroes of his own novels. His mysterious correspondent might be young and beautiful or old and ugly. In either case the proposal could have no attraction for him. His person was well known, and an assignation at so public a place could not pass unnoticed. In his most foolish years he had kept clear of entanglements with women, and did not mean to begin. He was out of town when the letter arrived. He found it when he returned, but again left it unnoticed. A third time, however, the lady wrote, and in more pressing terms appointed another hour at the same place. The perseverance struck him as singular. He showed the note to two intimate friends, who both advised him not to neglect a request which might have meaning in it. He went. By the side of the fountain he found sitting an old woman, very small in person, strangely dressed, and peculiar in manner; such a figure as might be drawn in an illustrated story for a fairy godmother.