"It is where the heart is, after all," Mr. Dinwiddie resumed. "The Syrian sky does not make much difference. My home is waiting for me."
"But we speak of home here, and properly."
"Properly, for those who have it."
"I think, Mr. Dinwiddie, that we say 'home' sometimes, when we speak only of where the heart was."
"Better not," he said. "Let us have a living home, not a dead one. And that we can, always."
"What do you know of places where the heart was?" said papa, looking at me curiously.
"Not much, papa; but I was thinking; and I think people mean that sometimes."
"We will both trust she will never come nearer to the knowledge," said Mr. Dinwiddie, with one of his bright looks at papa and at me. It was assuming a little more interest in our affairs than I feared papa would like; but he took it quietly. More quietly than I could, though my reason for disquietude was different. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had set vibrating a chord in my heart which could not just then give a note of pleasure. I wanted it to lie still. The wide fair landscape took a look to me instantly, which indeed belonged to it, of "places where the heart was;" and the echo of broken hopes came up to my ear from the gray ruins near and far. Yet the flowers of spring were laughing and shouting under my feet. Was it hope, or mockery?
"What are you questioning, Miss Daisy ?" said Mr. Dinwiddie, as he offered me some fruit.
"I seemed to hear two voices in nature, Mr. Dinwiddie; - I wanted to find out which was the true."