A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to Lady Blessington, and with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on the second day after my arrival in London. It was “deep i’ the afternoon,” but I had not yet learned the full meaning of “town hours.” “Her ladyship had not come down to breakfast.” I gave the letter and my address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached home when a note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten. 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 centre of the arched ceiling; sofas, couches, ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through the room; enamelled tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back of a book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings. As the servant mentioned my name, she rose and gave me her hand very cordially, and a gentleman entering immediately after, she presented me to her son-in-law, Count D’Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and certainly the most splendid specimen of a man, and a well dressed one, that I had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversation went swimmingly on. [Sidenote: Appearances at forty.]