The guests were for the most part the neighboring gentry, the military, and the members of the bar; but there were others also, selected with peculiar care, and whose presence was secured at no inconsiderable pains. These were the leading “diners-out” of Dublin, and recognized “men about town,” whose names were seen on club committees, and whose word was law on all questions of society. Among them, the chief was Con Heffernan; and he now saw himself for the first time a guest at Gwynne Abbey. The invitation was made and accepted with a certain coquetting that gave it the character of a reconciliation; there were political differences to be got over, mutual recriminations to be forgotten; but as each felt, for his own reasons, not indisposed to renew friendly relations, the matter presented little difficulty, and when Mr. O'Reilly received his guest, on his arrival, with a shake of both hands, the action was meant and taken as a receipt in full for all past misunderstanding, and both had too much tact ever to go back on “bygones.” There had been a little correspondence between the parties, the early portions of which were marked “Confidential,” and the latter “Strictly confidential and private.” This related to a request made by O'Reilly to Heffernan to entreat his influence in behalf of Lionel Darcy. Nothing could exceed the delicacy of the negotiation; for after professing that the friendship which had subsisted between his own son and young Darcy was the active motive for the request, he went on to say that in the course of certain necessary legal investigations it was discovered that young Lionel, in the unguarded carelessness of a young and extravagant man, had put his name to bills of a large amount, and even hinted that he had not stopped there, but had actually gone the length of signing his father's name to documents for the sale of property. To obtain an appointment for him in some regiment serving in India would at once withdraw him from the likelihood of any exposure in these matters. To interest Heffernan in the affair was the object of O'Reilly's correspondence; and Heffernan was only too glad, at so ready an opportunity, to renew their raptured relations. Lions were not as fashionable in those days as at present; but still the party had its share in the person of Counsellor O'Halloran, the great orator of the bar, and the great speaker at public meetings, the rising patriot, who, not being deemed of importance enough to be bought, was looked on as incorruptible. He had come down special to defend O'Reilly in a record of Darcy _versus_ Hickman,--the first case submitted for trial by Bicknell, and one which, small in itself, would yet, if determined in the Knight's favor, form a rule of great importance respecting those that were to follow.