f his right mind, and swore
it was the last thing he ever should have thought of, when he invited my
master to his house, that his daughter should think of such a match. But
their talk signified not a straw, for as Miss Isabella's maid reported,
her young mistress was fallen over head and ears in love with Sir Condy
from the first time that ever her brother brought him into the house to
dinner. The servant who waited that day behind my master's chair was the
first who knew it, as he says; though it's hard to believe him, for he
did not tell it till a great while afterwards; but, however, it's likely
enough, as the thing turned out, that he was not far out of the way,
for towards the middle of dinner, as he says, they were talking of
stage-plays, having a playhouse, and being great play-actors at Mount
Juliet's Town; and Miss Isabella turns short to my master, and says:

'Have you seen the play-bill, Sir Condy?'

'No, I have not,' said he.

'Then more shame for you,' said the captain her brother, 'not to know
that my sister is to play Juliet to-night, who plays it better than any
woman on or off the stage in all Ireland.'

'I am very happy to hear it,' said Sir Condy; and there the matter
dropped for the present.

But Sir Condy all this time, and a great while afterwards, was at a
terrible nonplus; for he had no liking, not he, to stage-plays, nor
to Miss Isabella either--to his mind, as it came out over a bowl of
whisky-punch at home, his little Judy M'Quirk, who was daughter to a
sister's son of mine, was worth twenty of Miss Isabella. He had seen her
often when he stopped at her father's cabin to drink whisky out of the
eggshell, out hunting, before he came to the estate, and, as she gave
out, was under something like a promise of marriage to her. Anyhow, I
could not but pity my poor master, who was so bothered between them, and
he an easy-hearted man, that could not disoblige nobody--God bless him!
To be sure, it was not his place to behave ungenerous to Miss Isabella,
who had disobliged all her relations for his sake, as he remarked; and
then she was locked up in her chamber, and forbid to think of him any
more, which raised his spirit, because his family was, as he observed,
as good as theirs at any rate, and the Rackrents a suitable match for
the Moneygawls any day in the year; all which was true enough. But it
grieved me to see that, upon the strength of all this, Sir Condy was
growing more in the mind to ca