The heads bent over the table turned towards her inquiringly.
‘Have you the fidgets, mother?’ asked Virginia gravely.
‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Catherine, getting up from her cushions.
Mr. Lambton hastened across to help. An odd desire to slap Mr. Lambton seized her. She blushed that she should wish to.
‘But not before prayers?’ said Virginia, surprised.
‘Oh yes—I forgot prayers,’ said Catherine, slightly ashamed.
Virginia, though, was more ashamed. It did seem to her unfortunate that her mother should have said that before Mr. Lambton. Bad to forget them, but worse to say so.
She got up and rang the bell.
‘We’ll have them now, as you’re tired,’ she said.
There usedn’t to be prayers in Catherine’s day, because George in his day hadn’t liked them, and she had kept things up exactly as he had, so that it was natural she should forget the new habits, besides finding it difficult to remember that the Manor was really a rectory now, a place in which family prayers the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning were inevitable.