‘Hold up your head,’ says my shister to Judy, as Sir Condy was busy filling out a glass of punch for her eldest boy—‘Hold up your head, Judy; for who knows but we may live to see you yet at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate?’
‘Maybe so,’ says she, ‘but not the way you are thinking of.’
I did not rightly understand which way Judy was looking when she made this speech till a while after.
‘Why, Thady, you were telling me yesterday that Sir Condy had sold all entirely to Jason, and where then does all them guineas in the handkerchief come from?’
‘They are the purchase-money of my lady’s jointure,’ says I.
Judy looks a little bit puzzled at this. ‘A penny for your thoughts, Judy,’ says my shister; ‘hark, sure Sir Condy is drinking her health.’
He was at the table in the room,[{24}] drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, who came up to see his honour, and we were standing over the fire in the kitchen.
[{24}] THE ROOM—the principal room in the house.
‘I don’t much care is he drinking my health or not,’ says Judy; ‘and it is not Sir Condy I’m thinking of, with all your jokes, whatever he is of me.’
‘Sure you wouldn’t refuse to be my Lady Rackrent, Judy, if you had the offer?’ says I.