s were mentioned or could be
inferred from the text. They did the same with regard to animals,
colours, gems, everything to which they could attribute a meaning. It is
simple enough."

"It is complicated enough!" said Durtal. "And now where was I?"

"In the Lady chapel, planting roses and anemones. Now add to these a
shrub which is the emblem of Mary according to the Anonymous monk of
Clairvaux, or of the Incarnation according to the Anonymous writer of
Troyes, the walnut, of which the fruit is interpreted in the same sense
by the Bishop of Sardis."

"And also mignonette," cried Durtal, "for Sister Emmerich speaks of it
frequently and with much mystery. She says that this flower is very
dear to Mary, who planted it and made much use of it.

"Then there is another plant which seems to me no less appropriate: the
bracken--not by reason of the qualities ascribed to it by Saint
Hildegarde, but because it symbolizes the most secret and retiring
humility. Take one of the stoutest stems and cut it aslant, like the
mouthpiece of a whistle, and you will find very distinctly imprinted in
black the form of a heraldic _fleur de lys_, as if stamped with a hot
iron. The scent being absent, we may here accept it as the symbol of
humility--a humility so perfect that it is undiscoverable but in death."

"Aha! our friend is not so ignorant of country lore as I had fancied,"
exclaimed Madame Bavoil.

"Oh, I wandered in the woods a little, as a child."

"For the choir no discussion is possible, I believe," said the Abbe
Gevresin. "The eucharistic plants, the vine and corn are self-evidently
appropriate.

"The vine, of which the Lord said '_Ego vitis sum_,' is also the emblem
of communion and the image of the eighth beatitude; corn, which, as the
Sacramental element, was the object of peculiar care and respect in the
Middle Ages.

"You have only to recall the solemn ceremonial observed in certain
convents when the wafer was to be prepared.

"At Saint Etienne, Caen, the monks washed their face and hands, and
kneeling before the altar of Saint Benedict, said Lauds, the seven
penitential Psalms, and the Litanies of the Saints. Then a lay brother
presented the mould in which the wafers were to be baked, two at a time;
and on the day when this unleavened bread was prepared those who had
taken part in the ceremony dined together, and their table was served
exactly like the Abbot's.

"At Cluny, again, three priests or three deacons,