The Pelicans by E.M. Delafield

Whether or no Morris was fully aware of the complete success which crowned this endeavour might remain open to question. He had recently, while in Paris, made an Italian friend who, a victim to home-sickness, had spoken much and eloquently of "_la famiglia_" in distant Rome. The impressionable Morris, rapidly becoming a dozen times more home-sick, if possible, than his friend, was soon finding it imperative that he should return to Pensevern, and his widowed mother. The reception, on the very morning of his departure, of Nina's letter announcing her sudden descent upon the convent, had merely served to increase her son's impetuous ardour for a meeting.

"I thought of you in uncongenial surroundings, as you wrote that you were, and probably lonely, and I felt I had to come," said Morris, with the direct and manly air of simplicity that he always regarded as one of his achievements.