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 pretty things he had given her; we knew that I was to have the diamond star, when I grew up, and Betty was to have the pearl and emerald pendant. Only the two brass buttons we might never touch.
We never knew why the brass buttons were so precious. She held them wonderfully—as though they were alive.
And we, too—we were always happier after we had seen them.
We knew that she felt, somehow, safer.
CHAPTER V
THE MOTHER'S VOW
We had no knowledge at first hand, of any family life except our own. But we imagined that we made up for any loss in that direction by following the outward fortunes of one other family, from a reverent distance, but with a closeness of devotion.