her delight was to browse in a library,—­and it was this taste that equipped her for her later friendships.  Her power of imagination was uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library.  Her father removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there.  He was not prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with adversity.  Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort.  On their return to Clonmel,—­beautiful, and with the distinction of knowledge and a clever use of it,—­they were a contrast to the ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and accomplishments was “two washing gowns and a tune on the piano.”  The girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and this became always a noted characteristic of hers.  They became the attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age.  This was the great misfortune of her life.

Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling towards him was that of aversion.  Cruelty and caprice were the chief components of his character.  From his tyranny she fled,—­first to her father’s house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere.  She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and accommodating herself to any companions.  Of this period of her life not much is recorded, save her beauty, for it was shortly after this that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to the eyes and interest to the face.  She lived in London with her brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband’s death occurred by his falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy.  Four months after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years of age.  With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes.  Her generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest trait.  Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her, and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest biographer.  Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.