She did leave Ireland and establish herself in London, where she had some acquaintances, among them the Earl of Blessington.  As already said, he had met her in Ireland while she was living with her husband; and now from time to time he saw her in a friendly way.  After the death of his wife he became infatuated with Margaret Farmer.  She was a good deal alone, and his attentions gave her entertainment.  Her past experience led her to have no real belief in love.  She had become, however, in a small way interested in literature and art, with an eager ambition to be known as a writer.  As it happened, Captain Farmer, whose name she bore, had died some months before Lord Blessington had decided to make a new marriage.  The earl proposed to Margaret Farmer, and the two were married by special license.

The Countess of Blessington—­to give the lady her new title—­was now twenty-eight years of age and had developed into a woman of great beauty.  She was noted for the peculiarly vivacious and radiant expression which was always on her face.  She had a kind of vivid loveliness accompanied by grace, simplicity, and a form of exquisite proportions.  The ugly duckling had become a swan, for now there was no trace of her former plainness to be seen.

Not yet in her life had love come to her.  Her first husband had been thrust upon her and had treated her outrageously.  Her second husband was much older than she; and, though she was not without a certain kindly feeling for one who had been kind to her, she married him, first of all, for his title and position.

Having been reared in poverty, she had no conception of the value of money; and, though the earl was remarkably extravagant, the new countess was even more so.  One after another their London houses were opened and decorated with the utmost lavishness.  They gave innumerable entertainments, not only to the nobility and to men of rank, but—­because this was Lady Blessington’s peculiar fad—­to artists and actors and writers of all degrees.  The American, N. P. Willis, in his Pencilings by the Way, has given an interesting sketch of the countess and her surroundings, while the younger Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) has depicted D’Orsay as Count Mirabel in Henrietta Temple.  Willis says: 

In a long library, lined alternately with splendidly bound books and mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room opening upon Hyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone.  The picture, to my eye, as the door opened, was a very lovely one—­a woman of remarkable beauty, half buried in a fauteuil of yellow satin, reading by a magnificent lamp suspended from the center of the arched ceiling.  Sofas, couches, ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through the room; enameled tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles in every corner, and a delicate white hand in relief on the back of a book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings.