oiled there
where he had placed it. He really had forgotten where it came from. The
envelope was opened and out dropped a Bank of England note for one
thousand pounds. This note was to pay for certain legal advice. The advice
wanted was of a trivial nature, and Disraeli, always conscientious in
money matters, hastened to return the money, in person, and give the
advice gratis.

But the lady had had the interview--two of them--and this was all she
wanted. Letters followed, and this developed into a daily correspondence,
wherein the old lady revealed the story of her passion--a passion as
delicate, earnest and all-devouring as ever a girl of twenty knew. Insane,
you say? Well, ah--yes, doubtless. But then, love is illusion; perhaps
life is illusion, a very beautiful rainbow, and why old folks should not
be allowed to chase it, or allow sweet emotion to gurgle gleefully under
their lee, a bit, as well as young folks, I do not know. Then, really, is
love simply a physical manifestation and do spirits grow old? If so, where
is our belief in the immortality of the soul?

Mrs. Willyums was childless, had long been a widow, was rich, and her
heart had been in the grave until she began to trace the record of
Disraeli. She was a recluse: read, studied, fed on Disraeli--loved him.
After several years of dreaming and planning she had actually bagged the
game. She was a woman of education and ideas. Her letters were
interesting--and Disraeli's letters to her, now published, reveal the
history of his daily life as he never told it to another. At her death the
bulk of Mrs. Willyum's fortune went by will to Disraeli.

But Mrs. Disraeli was not jealous of this affection. Why should a woman of
sixty be jealous of another woman the same age? They pooled their love and
grew rich together in recounting it. Presents were going backward and
forward all the time between Disraeli's country home and Torquay. Mrs.
Willyums next came to live at Hughenden. There she died, and there she
sleeps, side by side, as was her wish, with Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Privy
Seal, Earl Beaconsfield of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden of Hughenden.
And the reason the Ex-Premier was not buried in Westminster Abbey was
because he had promised these two women that even death should not
separate them from him. So there under the spreading elms, in this
out-of-the-way country place, they rest--these three, side by side, and
the sighing breeze tells and tells again to t