I was almost glad that it ended before I, too, quite broke down.
"Everybody crowded round the singer with admiration of the song, and inquiries about it.
"'I heard it at a concert in town the other day,' he said, 'and it struck me as pretty, so I got a copy. It is from an English opera called "Clari," and seems the only pretty thing in it.'
"'Do you not like it?' Miss Jones asked me; I suppose because I had not spoken.
"'I think it is lovely,' I said, 'as far as I can judge; but it carries one away from criticism; I do not think I was thinking of the music; I was thinking of Home.'
"'Exactly.'
"It was not Miss Jones who said 'Exactly,' but the merchant, who was standing by her; and he said it, not in that indefinite tone of polite assent with which people commonly smile answers to each other's remarks at evening parties, but as if he understood the words from having thought the thought. We three fell into conversation about the song—about 'Clari'—about the opera—the theatre—about London; and then Dr. Brown, who had been educated in the great city, joined us, and finally he and Miss Jones took the London subject to themselves, and the merchant continued to talk to me. He was very pleasant company, chiefly from being so alive with intelligence that it was much less trouble to talk with him than with any one I had ever met, except my father. He required so much less than the average amount of explanation. It hardly seemed possible to use too few words for him to seize your meaning by both ends, so to speak; the root your idea sprang from, and conclusion to which it tended.
"We talked of music—of singing—of the new song, and of the subject of it—home. And so of home-love, and patriotism, and the characters of nations in which the feeling seemed to predominate.
"'Like everything else, it depends partly on circumstances, I suppose,' he said. 'I sometimes envy people who have only one home—the eldest son of a landed proprietor, for instance. I fancy I have as much home-love in me as most people, but it has been divided; I have had more homes than one.'
"'I have had more homes than one,' I said; 'but with me I do not think it has been divided. At least, one of the homes has been so much dearer than the others.'