most serious consequences might follow; Lord Derby protested; Lord Salisbury, the Secretary of State for India, was much perturbed.  But the Faery was unconcerned; she had settled to go to Balmoral on the 18th, and on the 18th she would go.  At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence, induced her to agree to stay in London for two days more.  “My head is still on my shoulders,” he told Lady Bradford.  “The great lady has absolutely postponed her departure!  Everybody had failed, even the Prince of Wales... and I have no doubt I am not in favour.  I can’t help it.  Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan War, and Derby compliments me on my unrivalled triumph.”  But before very long, on another issue, the triumph was the Faery’s.  Disraeli, who had suddenly veered towards a new Imperialism, had thrown out the suggestion that the Queen of England ought to become the Empress of India.  Victoria seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in season and out of season, pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability of putting his proposal into practice.  He demurred; but she was not to be baulked; and in 1876, in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his entire Cabinet, he found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy session by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal Title.  His compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery’s heart.  The measure was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria was deeply touched by the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended it.  She was, she said, much grieved by “the worry and annoyance” to which he was subjected; she feared she was the cause of it; and she would never forget what she owed to “her kind, good, and considerate friend.”  At the same time, her wrath fell on the Opposition.  Their conduct, she declared, was “extraordinary, incomprehensible, and mistaken,” and, in an emphatic sentence which seemed to contradict both itself and all her former proceedings, she protested that she “would be glad if it were more generally known that it was her wish, as people will have it, that it has been forced upon her!” When the affair was successfully over, the imperial triumph was celebrated in a suitable manner.  On the day of the Delhi Proclamation, the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with the new Empress of India.  That night the Faery, usually so homely in her attire, appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels, which had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj.  At the end of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the Queen-Empress.  His audacity was well received, and his speech was rewarded by a smiling curtsey.