"Yes," said Howard, "'the old, unhappy, far-off things,' that turn themselves into songs and stories! That is another puzzle; one's own sorrows and tragedies, would one like to think of them as being made into songs for other people to enjoy? I suppose we ought to be glad of it; but there does not seem anything poetical about them at the time; and yet they end by being sweeter than the old happy things. The 'Isle of Thorns'! Yes, that IS a beautiful name." Suddenly there came a faint musical sound on the air, as sweet as honey. Howard held up his hand. "What on earth or in heaven is that?" he said. "Those are the chimes of Sherborne!" said Maud. "One hears them like that when the wind is in this quarter. I like to hear them--they have always been to me a sort of omen of something pleasant about to happen. Perhaps it is in your honour to-day, to welcome you!" "Well," said Howard, "they are beautiful enough by themselves; and if they will bring me greater happiness than I have, I shall not object to that!" They smiled at each other, and stood in silence for a little, and then Maud pointed out some neighbouring villages. "All this," she said, "is Cousin Anne's--and yours. I think the Isle of Thorns is yours." "Then the old chief shall not be disturbed," said Howard. "How curious it is," said Maud, "to see a place of which one knows every inch laid out like a map beneath one. It seems quite a different place! As if something beautiful and strange must be happening there, if only one could see it!" "Yes," said Howard, "it is odd how we lose the feeling that a place is romantic when we come to know it. When I first went up to Cambridge, there were many places there that seemed to me to be so interesting: walls which seemed to hide gardens full of thickets, strange doorways by which no one ever passed out or in, barred windows giving upon dark courts, out of which no one ever seemed to look. But now that I know them all from the inside, they seem commonplace enough. The hidden garden is a place where Dons smoke and play bowls; the barred window is an undergraduate's gyp-room; there's no mystery left about them now. This place as I see it to-day--well, it seems the most romantic place in the world, full of unutterable secrets of life and death; but I suppose it may all come to wear a perfectly natural air to me some day." "That is what I like so much about Cousin Anne," said Maud; "nothing seems to be commonplace to her, and she puts back the mystery and wonder into it all. One must learn to do that for oneself somehow." "Yes, she's a great woman!" said Howard; "but what shall we do now?" "Oh, I am sorry," said Maud, "I have been keeping you all this time--wouldn't you like to go and look for Jack? I think I heard a shot just now up the valley."