"Come," said Mistress Bellairs, "what else have you against him? Is he not handsome, child?"
"Why, ma'am, handsome enough for such as like red hair."
"And merry, and good company?"
"Oh, ma'am, none better, as half the rogues in Bath know."
"Tush—you mean he is good-natured, I suppose?"
"He never said 'no' in his life, ma'am, I do believe, to man or woman."
"Well, then?" cried her mistress testily.
"And generous," gabbled Lydia, charmed by the cloud she beheld gathering on the brow reflected in the glass, "open-handed, ma'am. Mr. Mahoney—that queer peculiar servant of his—many a time he's told me, ma'am, that his only way to keep his wages for himself, and seldom he sees the sight of them, is to spend them at once, for his good master is that free-handed, ma'am, he'd give the coat off his servant's back."
"I'm quite aware," said the lady loftily, "that Mr. O'Hara's estates in Ireland are slightly embarrassed."
"I don't know what they call it, ma'am," cried Lydia shrilly. "It's not a ha'porth of rent the old lord's seen these twelve months. Last year they lived on the pictures. And now it's the plate, I'm told. But, indeed, ma'am, as Mr. Mahoney says, what does it matter to a gay gentleman like Mr. O'Hara? Sure, he's the sort, as he says to me only yesterday, that would come to a fortune on Monday and be sending to the pawnshop on Saturday."