soft blue flax on its
light stem, the abundant flowers of the convolvulus and campanula, tall
sun-flowers, and, if you choose, a palm, for I recollect that Sister
Emmerich speaks of this tree as a paragon of chastity, because, she
says, the male and female flowers are separate, and both kept modestly
hidden. Another interpretation to the credit of the palm!"

"But after all, you are absurd, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil. "All
this will not hold together. Your plants are the growth of different
climates, and in any case they could not all be in bloom at the same
time; consequently, by the time you have planted this, that will be
dead. You can never grow them side by side."

"That is symbolical of many unfinished cathedrals, where the building is
carried across from century to century," said Durtal, snapping his
stick. "But listen, fancy apart, there is something which may be done,
and has not been done, for celestial botany and pious posies.

"That is, to make a liturgical garden, a true Benedictine garden, where
flowers may be grown in succession for the sake of their relations to
the Scriptures and hagiology. Would it not be delightful to follow out
the liturgy of prayer with that of plants, to place them side by side in
the sanctuary, to deck the altars with flowers all having their meanings
according to the days and festivals; in short, to associate nature in
its most exquisite manifestation--that is, its flowers--with the
ceremonies of divine worship?"

"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed both the priests with one accord.

"Meanwhile, till these fine things are accomplished, I will be content
to dig in my little kitchen garden with an eye to the savoury stews in
which you shall share," said Madame Bavoil. "There I am in my element; I
do not lose my footing as I do in your imitation churches."

"And I, on my part, will meditate on the symbolism of eatables," said
Durtal, taking out his watch. "It is near breakfast time."

As he was going off, the Abbe Plomb called him back and said,
laughing,--

"In your future cathedral you have forgotten to reserve a nook for Saint
Columba, if, indeed, we can find some ascetic plant native, or at any
rate common, to Ireland, the land where this Father was born."

"The thistle, figurative of mortification and penance and a memento of
asceticism, is conspicuous as the badge of Scotland," replied Durtal.
"But why Saint Columba?"

"Because of all saints he is the most neglected, the