ey that saw the diamonds spoke
very handsomely of them, but thought it a pity they were not bestowed,
if it had so pleased God, upon a lady who would have become them better.
All these civilities wrought little with my lady, for she had taken an
unaccountable prejudice against the country, and everything belonging to
it, and was so partial to her native land, that after parting with the
cook, which she did immediately upon my master's decease, I never knew
her easy one instant, night or day, but when she was packing up to leave
us. Had she meant to make any stay in Ireland, I stood a great chance
of being a great favourite with her; for when she found I understood the
weathercock, she was always finding some pretence to be talking to me,
and asking me which way the wind blew, and was it likely, did I think,
to continue fair for England. But when I saw she had made up her mind to
spend the rest of her days upon her own income and jewels in England, I
considered her quite as a foreigner, and not at all any longer as part
of the family. She gave no vails to the servants at Castle Rackrent at
parting, notwithstanding the old proverb of 'as rich as a Jew,' which
she, being a Jewish, they built upon with reason. But from first to last
she brought nothing but misfortunes amongst us; and if it had not been
all along with her, his honour, Sir Kit, would have been now alive in
all appearance. Her diamond cross was, they say, at the bottom of it
all; and it was a shame for her, being his wife, not to show more duty,
and to have given it up when he condescended to ask so often for such a
bit of a trifle in his distresses, especially when he all along made it
no secret he married for money. But we will not bestow another thought
upon her. This much I thought it lay upon my conscience to say, in
justice to my poor master's memory.

'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody no good: the same wind that took the
Jew Lady Rackrent over to England brought over the new heir to Castle
Rackrent.

Here let me pause for breath in my story, for though I had a great
regard for every member of the family, yet without compare Sir Conolly,
commonly called, for short, amongst his friends, Sir Condy Rackrent, was
ever my great favourite, and, indeed, the most universally beloved man I
had ever seen or heard of, not excepting his great ancestor Sir Patrick,
to whose memory he, amongst other instances of generosity, erected a
handsome marble stone in the chu