At his right hand sat, or rather lounged, in all the carelessness of habitual indolence, a young man some years his junior, his dark complexion and eyes, his aquiline features, and short, thin upper lip almost resembling a Spanish face. His dress was the uniform of the Foot Guards,--a costume which well became him, and set off to the fullest advantage a figure of perfect symmetry. A manner of careless inattention in which he indulged, contrasted strongly with the quick impatience of his dark glances and the eager rapidity of his utterance when momentarily excited; for the Honorable Dick Forester was only cool by training, and not by temperament, and, at the time we speak of, his worldly education was scarcely more than well begun. The third figure--strikingly unlike the other two--was a man of fifty or thereabouts, short and plethoric. His features, rosy and sensual, were lit up by two gray eyes whose twinkle was an incessant provocative to laughter. The mouth was, however, the great index to his character. It was large and full, the under lip slightly projecting,--a circumstance perhaps acquired in the long habit of a life where the tasting function had been actively employed; for Con Heffernan was a gourmand of the first water, and the most critical judge of a vintage the island could boast. Two fingers of either hand were inserted in the capacious pockets of a white vest, while, his head jauntily leaning to one side, he sat the very ideal of self-satisfied ease and contentment. The _aplomb_--why should there be a French word for an English quality?--he possessed was not the vulgar ease of a presuming or underbred man,--far from it; it was the impress of certain gifts which gave him an acknowledged superiority in the society he moved in. He was shrewd, without over-caution; he was ready-witted, but never rash; he possessed that rare combination of quick intelligence with strong powers of judgment; and, above all, he knew men, or at least such specimens of the race as came before him in a varied life, well and thoroughly.