s.

'What cross?' says I; 'is it about her being a heretic?'

'Oh, no such matter,' says he; 'my master does not mind her heresies,
but her diamond cross it's worth I can't tell you how much, and she has
thousands of English pounds concealed in diamonds about her, which she
as good as promised to give up to my master before he married; but now
she won't part with any of them, and she must take the consequences.'

Her honeymoon, at least her Irish honeymoon, was scarcely well over,
when his honour one morning said to me, 'Thady, buy me a pig!' and then
the sausages were ordered, and here was the first open breaking-out of
my lady's troubles. My lady came down herself into the kitchen to speak
to the cook about the sausages, and desired never to see them more at
her table. Now my master had ordered them, and my lady knew that. The
cook took my lady's part, because she never came down into the kitchen,
and was young and innocent in housekeeping, which raised her pity;
besides, said she, at her own table, surely my lady should order and
disorder what she pleases. But the cook soon changed her note, for my
master made it a principle to have the sausages, and swore at her for a
Jew herself, till he drove her fairly out of the kitchen; then, for fear
of her place, and because he threatened that my lady should give her no
discharge without the sausages, she gave up, and from that day forward
always sausages, or bacon, or pig-meat in some shape or other, went up
to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in her own room, and my
master said she might stay there, with an oath: and to make sure of her,
he turned the key in the door, and kept it ever after in his pocket. We
none of us ever saw or heard her speak for seven years after that: he
carried her dinner himself.

[This part of the history of the Rackrent family can scarcely be thought
credible; but in justice to honest Thady, it is hoped the reader
will recollect the history of the celebrated Lady Cathcart's conjugal
imprisonment. The editor was acquainted with Colonel M'Guire, Lady
Cathcart's husband; he has lately seen and questioned the maid-servant
who lived with Colonel M'Guire during the time of Lady Cathcart's
imprisonment. Her ladyship was locked up in her own house for many
years, during which period her husband was visited by the neighbouring
gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments
to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the compan