Miss Jane Etherton was evidently either not blessed with a woman’s heart, or she concealed her feelings—her nose only betraying some little sensation. “What do you intend doing, Howard?” asked Miss Jane. “Force her solicitor to produce proofs, of course;” and then, after a moment’s thought, he continued, “it would be a good speculation to make her my wife.” Miss Jane’s prominent feature became so extremely red, that even her brother remarked, with a malicious laugh: “Upon my word, Jane, your nose is quite a barometer; it states the effect of your feelings.” Jane did not like the remark, and being quite as caustic as her brother, she replied: “I am glad that in the midst of your troubles, and I think you will find them difficult to get over, that you have room for ridiculous remarks.” “Tut,” laughed the Baronet, “you take a joke too seriously; but do you know, did you ever hear, what kind of girl this Mabel is; when a child, she was a puny, pale-faced, half-starved looking thing.” “I know nothing about her,” returned Miss Jane, sharply. “I suppose you can get a look at her if you like; I heard Ellen Goodridge say, who knows the Volneys, and visits at Madame’s Villa, she was well enough, but very shy and serious.” “So much the better; qualities I should admire in a wife. One of those Volney girls I understand is going to be married to that Irishman O’Loughlin, who has just been made a commander. He has impudence and brass enough for anything; but how a high family like the Volneys can tolerate a fellow, whom I myself heard say, he ‘never had a father or a mother, and that his huge fist was father, mother, and grand-mother to him, and a whole host of relations besides’—I can’t comprehend.” “Horrid savage!” said Miss Jane. “What is he like? a sedan-chair man, I suppose? All the sedan-chair men in London are Irishmen—they have such large legs.” “Which is the reason they are selected by the fashionable ladies,” said the Baronet; “to sport behind their carriages, with calves to their legs like Swedish turnips.” As the Baronet said these words, the door opened, and a domestic entered the room with a card on a silver salver. “A gentleman below, sir, in the reception-room, wishes particularly to see you.” Sir Howard Etherton took the card, gave a slight start, changing colour as he read aloud, “Captain O’Loughlin.” Miss Jane sprang from her seat, as if it, and not her nose, was red hot, exclaiming: “Bless me, how extraordinary! What can this horrid man want? You will surely not see him?” The servant stared, for he could scarcely think that the tall and handsome man, in the undress uniform of a commander in the navy, could possibly be the horrid man Miss Jane alluded to. Sir Howard, remembering of old the contempt that O’Loughlin held him in, and how he himself detested him, hesitated whether he would see him or not; but suddenly making up his mind he said: “Show Captain O’Loughlin up.”