The chancellor's little oration came upon the party like a thunderclap. There was no more flirting now, or dallying with taper waists. Doreen, at mention of her hero, woke with a start from reverie. Her lids quivered for a second, and shrank as though her eyes were blinded by the lightning. She cast one wild glance of reproach at her cousin--then was herself again--a trifle paler maybe; but otherwise the staid, impassive maiden whose grave austerity so awed the turbulent squireens. The Emmetts and their friends seemed stunned. Their hopes were blasted now, as it appeared, for ever. It would have been better not to have waited for tardy assistance so feebly administered. At times of deep anguish, thoughts whirl through the brain in vivid flashes. Tom Emmett saw at once that the executive had won a double victory. The bugbear which had threatened them was dissolved and gone. The members of the Irish Directory, who had been for acting at once, would turn now upon their comrades with a plausible appearance of justice, and revile them for having allowed precious moments to slip by. The breach in the national bulwark, which had been showing in dangerous fissures, would be rent into chasms now--the edifice, which had taken such anxious pains to rear, would crumble into dust. It was the oppressor's hour of triumph. Ireland's fate was sealed. Such were the gloomy thoughts which crushed the leader of the patriots. With the majority of the party present it was far otherwise. A mighty huzza shook the rafters--another and another--like waves rolling in to shore. The officers of yeomanry and militia saw before them a bright perspective of lawlessness, wherein the Helots would be handed over to their mercy--to smite, and revile, and torture, and kill--wherein their daughters would become a legitimate prey, their flocks and herds a booty, their household gods an appanage. Now was the time come when it behoved them to display their zeal. So thought the squireens, so also thought the lords their leaders, who hoped that they might earn extra pensions by accepting the bait that was held out. So the glittering assemblage rose with one accord--on the chairs--even on the tables, and the luckless professors of a different creed were compelled to follow suit, as small stones are dashed along at the mercy of the breakers. With shouts, with frantic wavings of swords and handkerchiefs--supporting each other as they swayed in their excitement---the lord-lieutenant's guests drank to the wind, and, at the same time, to the new year, which was thus heralded to the Irish capital in noise and drunken tumult.