to the window, where he could get more than his fair share of fresh air, the other twin, James — the fat and the lean of it,old Jolyon called these brothers — like the bulky Swithin, over six feet in height, but very lean, as though destined fromhis birth to strike a balance and maintain an average, brooded over the scene with his permanent stoop; his grey eyes had anair of fixed absorption in some secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid, shifting scrutiny of surrounding facts; hischeeks, thinned by two parallel folds, and a long, clean-shaven upper lip, were framed within Dundreary whiskers. In hishands he turned and turned a piece of china. Not far off, listening to a lady in brown, his only son Soames, pale andwell-shaved, dark-haired, rather bald, had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that aforesaid appearance of‘sniff,’ as though despising an egg which he knew he could not digest. Behind him his cousin, the tall George, son of thefifth Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish look on his fleshy face, pondering one of his sardonic jests. Something inherent to theoccasion had affected them all.

Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies — Aunts Ann, Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short forJulia), who not in first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry Septimus Small, a man of poor constitution. She hadsurvived him for many years. With her elder and younger sister she lived now in the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngestbrother, on the Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held fans in their hands, and each with some touch of colour, someemphatic feather or brooch, testified to the solemnity of the opportunity.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon himself.Eighty years of age, with his fine, white hair, his dome-like forehead, his little, dark grey eyes, and an immense whitemoustache, which drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal look, and in spite of lean