e law at
Castle Brady. She ordered the servants to and fro, and taught them,
what indeed they much wanted, a little London neatness; and 'English
Redmond,' as I was called, was treated like a little lord, and had a
maid and a footman to himself; and honest Mick paid their wages,--which
was much more than he was used to do for his own domestics,--doing
all in his power to make his sister decently comfortable under her
afflictions. Mamma, in return, determined that, when her affairs were
arranged, she would make her kind brother a handsome allowance for
her son's maintenance and her own; and promised to have her handsome
furniture brought over from Clarges Street to adorn the somewhat
dilapidated rooms of Castle Brady.
But it turned out that the rascally landlord seized upon every chair and
table that ought by rights to have belonged to the widow. The estate to
which I was heir was in the hands of rapacious creditors; and the only
means of subsistence remaining to the widow and child was a rent-charge
of L50 upon my Lord Bagwig's property, who had many turf-dealings with
the deceased. And so my dear mother's liberal intentions towards her
brother were of course never fulfilled.
It must be confessed, very much to the discredit of Mrs. Brady of Castle
Brady, that when her sister-in-law's poverty was thus made manifest,
she forgot all the respect which she had been accustomed to pay her,
instantly turned my maid and man-servant out of doors, and told Mrs.
Barry that she might follow them as soon as she chose. Mrs. Mick was of
a low family, and a sordid way of thinking; and after about a couple
of years (during which she had saved almost all her little income) the
widow complied with Madam Brady's desire. At the same time, giving way
to a just though prudently dissimulated resentment, she made a vow that
she would never enter the gates of Castle Brady while the lady of the
house remained alive within them.
She fitted up her new abode with much economy and considerable taste,
and never, for all her poverty, abated a jot of the dignity which was
her due and which all the neighbourhood awarded to her. How, indeed,
could they refuse respect to a lady who had lived in London, frequented
the most fashionable society there, and had been presented (as she
solemnly declared) at Court? These advantages gave her a right which
seems to be pretty unsparingly exercised in Ireland by those natives who
have it,--the right of looking do
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