Mrs. Bainbridge sighed. She was, as the Colonel remarked, a very good-natured woman, one sign and evidence of which good-nature was, in _his_ opinion, taking compliments in good part, and not objecting now and then to a little harmless flirtation. In the days when the free-and-easy Colonel (a squadron of whose regiment had been despatched to those “outlandish parts,” to do battle if necessary at a contested election) used to frequent the “best inn’s best parlour” in the large western town of Ballyderry, Mrs. Bainbridge, whose husband was an attorney (law and liquor are not unfrequently in the ould counthry dispensed by the same individual), would listen with flattering smiles to the pleasant blarney of the Saxon and the stranger. “Ah now, Colonel!” and “Shure you’re such a gentleman to talk,” were the full extent of reproof which Mrs. Bainbridge’s wifely sense of decorum urged her tongue to utter; and yet she was really a good woman, faithful, honest, and not in any degree forward or immodest. She was simply a little vain, and fond of flattering words. So agreeable too had the gallant Colonel contrived to make himself, that it needed all the unmitigated “schoundrelism” of which old Phil Moriarty had justly accused him, to open the then laughter-loving Mrs. Bainbridge’s eyes to the true character of her unprincipled favourite. But although her eyes had been thus effectually opened, and albeit her anger against the destroyer of her sister’s life and character partook even of the character of rancour, so deep was it, and so endurable, yet nevertheless the worthy woman could not resist the tempting offer of repeating to a fresh listener the epitomised history of her widowhood, and the migration from her native land which followed on her “good man’s” decease. “You see, sir, he was little better than a weight upon a woman’s hands, was poor Tom. He never enjoyed his health for a day since he married. Something in’ard, the doctors said; but it’s my belief they didn’t know much about it. He was a long while lying; and though, if I was to die to-morrow, I could say with truth that I never _begridged_ him neither the time nor the throuble, nor yet the money he cost me; yet I couldn’t but feel he was a sore handful; and he wasted to skin and bone! Such work as we had to turn him in his bed at last, you’d never believe.” “I daresay it _was_ a bore,” remarked Norcott, whose weariness at these details was almost past endurance, but who felt, nevertheless, imperatively called upon to express a proper sympathy on the occasion. “People had better die when they are in that sort of state.”