July, 1825. They started for Italy the same day, and eleven months afterwards their only child, the late Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, whose loss is still deplored, was born at Florence. So great was the danger of Mrs. Blackwood, as she then was, that a consultation was held as to whether her life, or that of her child, should be saved. Overhearing it, she cried, "Never mind me, save my baby!"
Wonderful, indeed, was the love between mother and son. She was so young that she was taken for a girl, until she was heard consulting with a friend whether her baby's ribbons should be pink or cherry-coloured.
Lord Dufferin says that "it is not every son that can remember his mother's coming of age;" he did, and celebrated the event by nearly poisoning himself by eating laburnum berries. During the six years of Lady Dufferin's married life she spent a wandering existence, sometimes in Italy, sometimes at a cottage at Thames Ditton, and sometimes with her mother at Hampton Court. Her husband was generally at sea, and his visits had to be few and far between. She paid several visits to Clandeboye, to her husband's great-uncle, James, Lord Dufferin, and her presence brought sunshine into the dull existence of a common-place North of Ireland family. Her musical talent would have made her an
