At half past nine, according to invariable custom, the whole family, including the house servants, assembled in the library for family prayers. This, like all the other rooms in the new part, was spacious and high-ceiled. It was lined with those books which no gentleman’s library should be without: solemn sets of library books with undimmed gilt lettering and which were only taken from their library shelves to be dusted. All the books which were ever read were in the shabby old study across the corridor. Everything at Harrowby was done in a certain fixed and unvarying manner. The candles used at prayers were always of wax, in tall silver candlesticks, which were placed with the great open Bible on a round mahogany table in the middle of the room. The family sat ranged about in chairs, the servants standing, Hector behind Colonel Tremaine and Mammy Tulip behind Archie, who as a small boy had required watching at “pra’r time.” Colonel Tremaine read in a deep sonorous voice the Gospel, and Mrs. Tremaine made a prayer short and conventional, but with sometimes a phrase or two added that stirred the heart. To-night she thanked God for all their blessings adding, “and last of all for having our children Neville, Richard, Archibald, and Angela about us in health and well-being.” Angela Vaughn had ever been included as a child of Harrowby since as a wailing infant she had first been held in Mrs. Tremaine’s arms. She was no blood relationship to them and had no fortune, but she had never felt the want of either love or money. After prayers, it was bedtime for Mrs. Tremaine and Angela. The girl kissed Colonel Tremaine good night to which he responded, “Good night, my daughter, and God keep you.” Latterly, in the dignity of her nineteen years, she had acquired the habit of putting up her cheek to be kissed by Richard and Archie instead of placing her arms about their necks as she did with Colonel Tremaine. When she held her smooth, pale cheek toward Neville, he brushed his dark mustache over it, and Lyddon saw something which amazed him--a deep red color showed suddenly under Neville’s tan and sunburn. Richard saw it, too; nothing escaped his vigilant eye.