CLOSE ON IT.

THE object of the invasion of the library by the party in the garden
appeared to be twofold.

Sir Patrick had entered the room to restore the newspaper to the place
from which he had taken it. The guests, to the number of five, had
followed him, to appeal in a body to Geoffrey Delamayn. Between these
two apparently dissimilar motives there was a connection, not visible on
the surface, which was now to assert itself.

Of the five guests, two were middle-aged gentlemen belonging to that
large, but indistinct, division of the human family whom the hand of
Nature has painted in unobtrusive neutral tint. They had absorbed the
ideas of their time with such receptive capacity as they possessed;
and they occupied much the same place in society which the chorus in an
opera occupies on the stage. They echoed the prevalent sentiment of the
moment; and they gave the solo-talker time to fetch his breath.

The three remaining guests were on the right side of thirty. All
profoundly versed in horse-racing, in athletic sports, in pipes, beer,
billiards, and betting. All profoundly ignorant of every thing else
under the sun. All gentlemen by birth, and all marked as such by the
stamp of "a University education." They may be personally described as
faint reflections of Geoffrey; and they may be numerically distinguished
(in the absence of all other distinction) as One, Two, and Three.

Sir Patrick laid the newspaper on the table and placed himself in one of
the comfortable arm-chairs. He was instantly assailed, in his domestic
capacity, by his irrepressible sister-in-law. Lady Lundie dispatched