‘All,’ says I.

‘All entirely?’ says she again.

‘All entirely’ says I.

‘Then,’ says she, ’that’s a great shame; but don’t be telling Jason what I say.’

‘And what is it you say?’ cries Sir Condy, leaning over betwixt us, which made Judy start greatly.  ’I know the time when Judy M’Quirk would never have stayed so long talking at the door and I in the house.’

‘Oh!’ says Judy, ’for shame, Sir Condy; times are altered since then, and it’s my Lady Rackrent you ought to be thinking of.’

‘And why should I be thinking of her, that’s not thinking of me now?’ says Sir Condy.

‘No matter for that,’ says Judy, very properly; ’it’s time you should be thinking of her, if ever you mean to do it at all, for don’t you know she’s lying for death?’

‘My Lady Rackrent!’ says Sir Condy, in a surprise; ’why it’s but two days since we parted, as you very well know, Thady, in her full health and spirits, and she, and her maid along with her, going to Mount Juliet’s Town on her jaunting-car.

‘She’ll never ride no more on her jaunting-car,’ said Judy, ’for it has been the death of her, sure enough.’

And is she dead then?’ says his honour.

‘As good as dead, I hear,’ says Judy; ’but there’s Thady here as just learnt the whole truth of the story as I had it, and it’s fitter he or anybody else should be telling it you than I, Sir Condy:  I must be going home to the childer.’

But he stops her, but rather from civility in him, as I could see very plainly, than anything else, for Judy was, as his honour remarked at her first coming in, greatly changed, and little likely, as far as I could see—­though she did not seem to be clear of it herself—­little likely to be my Lady Rackrent now, should there be a second toss-up to be made.  But I told him the whole story out of the face, just as Judy had told it to me, and he sent off a messenger with his compliments to Mount Juliet’s Town that evening, to learn the truth of the report, and Judy bid the boy that was going call in at Tim M’Enerney’s shop in O’Shaughlin’s Town and buy her a new shawl.

‘Do so,’ Said Sir Condy, ’and tell Tim to take no money from you, for I must pay him for the shawl myself.’  At this my shister throws me over a look, and I says nothing, but turned the tobacco in my mouth, whilst Judy began making a many words about it, and saying how she could not be beholden for shawls to any gentleman.  I left her there to consult with my shister, did she think there was anything in it, and my shister thought I was blind to be asking her the question, and I thought my shister must see more into it than I did, and recollecting all past times and everything, I changed my mind, and came over to her way of thinking, and we settled it that Judy was very like to be my Lady Rackrent after all, if a vacancy should have happened.

The next day, before his honour was up, somebody comes with a double knock at the door, and I was greatly surprised to see it was my son Jason.