qual authority with those of Saint Mechtildis, who was born in the
early part of the thirteenth century.

"In point of fact, the source whence they both alike derived them is the
same. And what is time, or past or present, when we speak of God?

"These women were the sieves through which His grace was poured, and
what need I care whether the instruments were of yesterday or to-day?
The word of the Lord is supreme over the ages; His inspiration blows
when and where it lists. Is not that true?"

"I quite agree."

"And all this time," said the housekeeper, "you do not think of making
use in your building of the iris, which my good Jeanne de Matel regards
as an emblem of peace."

"Oh, we will find a place for it, Madame Bavoil, never fear. And there
is yet another plant which we must not omit; the trefoil, for sculptors
have strewn it broadcast in their stony gardens, and the trefoil, like
the fruit of the almond tree, which shows the elongated nimbus, is an
emblem of the Holy Trinity.

"Suppose we recapitulate:

"At the end of the nave, in the shell of the apse, in front of a
semicircle of tall bracken turned brown by autumn, we see a flaming
assumption of climbing roses hedging a bed of red and white anemones,
edged with the sober green of mignonette. And to give variety by adding
symbols of humility--the knotweed, the violet, and the hyssop--we may
form a posy of which the meaning will represent the perfect virtues of
Our Mother.

"Now," said he, pointing with his stick to the plan of the nave he had
traced, "here is the altar, overgrown with red-leaved vines, purple or
pearly grapes, sheaves of golden corn. Ah! but we must have a cross over
the altar."

"That will not be difficult," replied the Abbe Gevresin. "From the grain
of mustard seed, which all the symbolists accept in a figurative sense
as representing Christ, to the sycamore and the terebinth, you have a
wide range; you can at pleasure have a tiny cross, a mere nothing, or a
gigantic crucifix."

"Here," Durtal went on, "along the bays where trefoils flourish,
different flowers rise from the ground, corresponding to the saints of
their ascription; here is the chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Dolours,
recognizable by the passion-flower full blown on its creeping stem, with
its many tendrils; and the background is a hedge of reeds and rhamnus,
full of sad meaning, mitigated by the compassionate myrtle.

"Here, again, is the sacristy, where smiles the