“Now,” continued the old woman, still with her arms around her astonished foster-child, “place that mirror on the table; softly, man, softly, you are not wielding your iron bolts now, and that silver frame is easily bruised if you knock the fillagree work about after that fashion!—there, set it down, for a bungler as you are; place the lamp in front; be careful, knave, you are treading on my lady’s lute—pick it up!” The man pushed the lute aside with his foot, and set the lamp down without regard to the old woman’s order. “So, you cannot pick up the lute which a noble lady has fingered, forsooth! Wait a few days, and we shall see you creeping on your knees for the honor, instead of standing there with a look as stubborn as your own iron bars. Go, bring in the case of essence bottles, if that does not prove too heavy a task, and then take yourself off, for a clumsy cur; a pretty serving-man you would make, I trow!” The man, on whom the old woman’s eloquence was exercised, seemed very willing to obey her last command. He brought in the case which she had desired, and, placing it on the table, left the dungeon and was about to lock the door, but just as he was closing it a clear cheerful voice was heard in conversation with him. After a moment’s delay, the half-closed door was swung open again to admit a handsome boy in the king’s livery, who carried a casket under his arm. “That was well thought of, my pretty page,” said the nurse, approaching to take the casket, “but who has found courage to break the new protector’s seal? If it was you, boy, I only hope that handsome head may be firm on your shoulders six weeks hence. I would as soon have touched a red-hot coal as the bit of wax sticking to the smallest cabinet in the palace, and I saw all my lady’s jewels counted and locked up weeks ago.” As she spoke, the old nurse allowed the Lady Jane to escape from her embrace, while she advanced to the page, and would have taken the casket from under his arm, but he stepped aside, with a roguish toss of the head, and dropping on his knee before the young lady, placed the casket in her hand. Bewildered, and as one in a dream, she gazed first upon the casket, then, wonderingly, on the handsome boy at her feet. “What means this?” she said at last, looking doubtfully toward the duchess, who sat gazing upon the scene with equal wonder. “Our crest is upon the lid, but underneath are the royal arms of England.” The duchess arose, and, taking the casket from her daughter’s hand, touched a spring. The lid flew open, and, with an exclamation of surprise, the ladies saw, not their own jewels, but a magnificent suite of diamonds which had once belonged to Jane Seymour, the Queen of Henry the Eighth; a young creature who had perished in giving birth to the present king—fortunate, perhaps, in being taken from her earthly state before she had learned how terrible a thing it was to “outlive her husband’s liking.”