Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/34

22 listening to that music she never made for us.

And I would look across at Bettina's face, all changed and overcast.

Then I would shut the window.

Bettina ought never to hear such music.

For myself I wondered uneasily what there could be in the beautiful world to inspire a song like that, and to make a lady sit singing it "between the lights."

As I say, when the sound was fainter the sadness of it pierced us deeper still.

As we two sat there, formless fears crept in and crouched in the shadowy places.

Oh, we were glad when Martha Loring's face appeared, with the lamp and consolatory suggestions of supper.

Better still, the blessed times when the music was too sad even for our mother - when she would break off and come to find us - help us to hurry through our task, and then for reward (hers, or ours? ... I never quite knew) open the satinwood cabinet, and take out the treasures and let us see and handle them. All but two. We had been allowed to hold our father's order and his watch. We had turned over the