Two seats were reserved on each side of the chairman; and while Mac Dermot locked the door again, and every person present rose, Sir Arthur Adelon, with his stately step and aristocratic air, but, if the truth must be told, with a good deal of disgust and some anxiety at heart, walked up to the head of the table, shook hands with Norries, and took one of the vacant chairs. The other was immediately occupied by Mac Dermot, and then rising, the chairman said, "Gentlemen, I have the honour of introducing to you Sir Arthur Adelon, whose station and fortune afford the lowest title to your esteem. Far higher in mind than in rank, far richer in generous qualities and in mental endowments than in wealth, he has ever shown himself the friend of that great and majestic body, the people of this country; he has always professed and undauntedly maintained the same opinions which we conscientiously entertain; and he is ready, I am sure, to go heart and hand with us in all just and reasonable measures for the defence of our rights and liberties." The whole party assembled gave the baronet a cheer, and the sensations with which Sir Arthur had entered began already to wane, even in the first excitement of the moment. Here, however, I must drop the curtain over a scene of which the reader has probably had enough, and proceed to other events of no less importance in this tale. CHAPTER XI. It is the most difficult thing in the world to convey to the mind of a reader the idea of extended space by a rapid sketch. You may say days passed, and weeks; but the reader does not believe a word of it. He takes up the narrative where it left off; an abstract proposition is put before him, and he does not pursue it to any of its consequences. He does not consider for one moment, unless it be clearly explained to him, how those days and those weeks, with all the events which they brought to pass, had wrought upon the characters, the circumstances, and the relative positions of the personages before him. In a mere sketch with the pencil you can do better: by lighter lines and finer touches you make distant objects recede; by bolder strokes and stronger delineations you bring forward the near and the distinct. Nevertheless, I must endeavour to pass over several days rapidly, curtailing every unnecessary description, rejecting every needless detail, and yet dwelling so far upon the several events as to mark to the reader's mind that time was passing, and bearing on its rapid and buoyant flood a multitude of small objects, marking to each individual the progress of time towards eternity.