Thus it was that I repaid Ulick Brady’s kindness to me in early days; and had the satisfaction of restoring the fallen fortunes of a deserving branch of my family.  He took his bride into Wicklow, where he lived with her in the strictest seclusion until the affair was blown over; the Kiljoys striving everywhere in vain to discover his retreat.  They did not for a while even know who was the lucky man who had carried off the heiress; nor was it until she wrote a letter some weeks afterwards, signed Amelia Brady, and expressing perfect happiness in her new condition, and stating that she had been married by Lady Lyndon’s chaplain Mr. Runt, that the truth was known, and my worthy friend confessed his share of the transaction.  As his good-natured mistress did not dismiss him from his post in consequence, everybody persisted in supposing that poor Lady Lyndon was privy to the plot; and the story of her Ladyship’s passionate attachment for me gained more and more credit.

I was not slow, you may be sure, in profiting by these rumours.  Every one thought I had a share in the Brady marriage; though no one could prove it.  Every one thought I was well with the widowed Countess; though no one could show that I said so.  But there is a way of proving a thing even while you contradict it, and I used to laugh and joke so apropos that all men began to wish me joy of my great fortune, and look up to me as the affianced husband of the greatest heiress in the kingdom.  The papers took up the matter; the female friends of Lady Lyndon remonstrated with her and cried ‘Fie!’ Even the English journals and magazines, which in those days were very scandalous, talked of the matter; and whispered that a beautiful and accomplished widow, with a title and the largest possessions in the two kingdoms, was about to bestow her hand upon a young gentleman of high birth and fashion, who had distinguished himself in the service of His M-----y the K--- of Pr----.  I won’t say who was the author of these paragraphs; or how two pictures, one representing myself under the title of ‘The Prussian Irishman,’ and the other Lady Lyndon as ‘The Countess of Ephesus,’ actually appeared in the Town and Country Magazine, published at London, and containing the fashionable tittle-tattle of the day.

Lady Lyndon was so perplexed and terrified by this continual hold upon her, that she determined to leave the country.  Well, she did; and who was the first to receive her on landing at Holyhead?  Your humble servant, Redmond Barry, Esquire.  And, to crown all, the Dublin Mercury, which announced her Ladyship’s departure, announced mine the day before.  There was not a soul but thought she had followed me to England; whereas she was only flying me.  Vain hope!—­ a man of my resolution was not thus to be balked in pursuit.  Had she fled to the antipodes, I would have been there:  ay, and would have followed her as far as Orpheus did Eurydice!