1848, I saw Lillian Winnstay again. Dare I write my history between these two points of time?" By all means: and, if you please, get on a little faster. It will naturally occur to the reader that Messrs Crossthwaite and Mackaye could not be remarkably well pleased at witnessing their friend's intromissions with the aristocracy. The docking of the poems had been the first symptom of retrogression from the Chartist camp; the acceptance of invitations to exclusive soirées was a still more grievous offence. Accordingly, Alton began to suffer for his sins. His old employer, O'Flynn, was down upon him in the columns of the _Warwhoop_, tomahawking him for his verses, ridiculing his pretensions, exposing his private history, and denouncing him as no better than a renegade. Then, somebody sent him a pair of plush breeches, in evident token of his flunkyism--a doubleedged and cruel insult which nearly drove him distracted. Old Sandy Mackaye, over his pipe and tumbler of toddy, descanted upon the degeneracy of the age, and John Crossthwaite told him in so many words that he had disappointed his expectations most miserably. Under these circumstances, Alton felt that there was nothing for him but to redeem his character as a Chartist by some daring step, even though it brought him within the iron grasp of the law. An opportunity soon presented itself. There was distress among the agricultural labourers in several districts; a monster meeting was to be held; and the club to which Alton belonged determined to send down a delegate to represent them. Alton instantly proffered himself for the somewhat perilous post: and the warmth of his protestations and entreaties overcame the suspicions, and removed the jealousy, of his comrades. Even O'Flynn pronounced him to be "a broth of a boy." In the midst of the meeting, however, he was startled by a glimpse of the countenance of his cousin George, who, it afterwards appears, had come thither as a spy, armed with a bowie-knife and revolver!