“But you look rather melancholy about it, Mary,” said Mrs Greville. “Are you homesick already?”
Mary smiled. Mr Morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity.
“Not exactly,” she said, honestly.
She glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table.
“What are you all laughing at me for?” she said, smiling herself.
“You are so dreadfully honest,” said Mrs Greville.
“And unsophisticated, I suppose,” said Mary, “to own to the possibility of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness.”
“It must be rather a nice feeling, I think,” said Mr Morpeth. “I mean to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs for. I have never known what that was—we were all at school for so many years after our father’s death—and since we have been together we have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at home.”
“It must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small chance of ever seeing home again,” said Cecilia Morpeth. “We used to see so much of that at Mentone and those places. Invalids who had not many days to live, just praying for home. Do you remember that poor young Brooke, last winter, Frances?”
“That’s it,” exclaimed the elder Miss Morpeth, emphatically.