There is something more expressive in the white of certain eyes than in the iris. The white of my mother's eyes was a crystalline blue-white. It caught the light and glistened. It seemed to respond more sensitively, to have more "seeing" in it than was in the pale blue iris. The contrast of heavy dark lashes may have lent the eye that almost startling look when the fringe of shadow lifted suddenly, and the eyeball answered to the light.
There was nothing the least tragic about my mother's usual looks or moods. She was merely gentle and aloof.
She helped us to be very happy children; and if she made us sometimes most unhappy, she did so unconsciously. And she did so only at times when she must have been unhappy, too.
She played for us to dance. And she played for us to sing. But after Bettina and I had gone through our gay little action songs, and after we had sung all together our glees and catches, we would be sent upstairs to do lessons in the morning-room—which was our schoolroom under the cheerfuller name.
Then, sitting alone, between daylight and dark, our mother would sing for herself songs of such sadness as youth could hardly bear. I think we were not expected to hear them. We would open the windows on that side in mild weather to hear the better. But the songs were sadder when we heard them faintly. Have you ever noticed that?
I would sit trying to fix my mind on lessons, 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."