“I re-entered the church with him, and he led me to the Lady Chapel, and my eyes rested on the carved figure representing the Virgin Mary. To celebrate the Easter festival, some one had presented new robes. I looked from the kindly face of the old priest, filled as it was with fond devotion, to the pensive face of the carved figure with the outstretched hands. “And there, where the folds of the blue mantle were gathered full upon the breast, I saw my brooch. “I stepped forward. ‘Ah, you notice that,’ said the Father. ‘Yes, for three weeks now we await the owner to appear. We have had notices written, and placards put about, but no one has claimed it. And so, till the festival is over, I have placed it where you see it. It is a gold brooch, therefore worthy to clasp the new robe.’ “I kept silence. I would not have cared to take it from where it now was. “I turned to go. A ray from one of the lighted candles glinted on the surface of the gold. Clearly, thought I, a signal of recognition. I knew its ways. “I let the old priest move a few paces in front of me, and quickly stepping back I touched it twice with my hand in token of farewell. I was filled with fear lest the priest should turn and see me, for however crazy one may be in these matters, one doesn’t like others to think one so.” “No,” said Clare. “I know that. If somebody comes in when I’ve been talking to myself, or saying lines out loud when I’m alone, I always quickly turn it into a cough of some description. It never sounds in the least like one, though.” “Have you always named things that belong to you?” asked Miss Ross. “Nothing can really live to you unless it has got a name.” “Yes,” said the children, “Mummie has names for things. She used to think when she was little that her feet were boys, and that they were called Owen and Barber. And she had an umbrella called Harvey, for years.” “It’s right to have fancies about things,” said Miss Ross. “I will tell you one that I read once long ago. “The writer said, ‘When I have risen to walk abroad in the fresh new air of summer, in the hour of dawn when mankind is still at rest, the face of Nature has taken to me a new aspect, the unity of all things in creation appears revealed. It has seemed to me that I have surprised a great secret. “‘I have seen Nature at such times depicted in the vast form of some great goddess, a woman of Titanic form. The races of mankind are her children, and according to the features of the land they live in, so are they placed upon her mother form. Those who live upon the plains dwell on the great palms of her hands; those whose dwellings are placed among the embosoming hills have her breast for their shelter. The lakes are her eyes and the great forests her hair, the rivers are her veins and the rain her tears, and she sighs in the sound of the Sea.