After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near his
cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean's
house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
'This is the lady,' said the farmer. 'This is Dean Murnith.' Then he
went away.
'Ah,' said the Dean, 'I understand you were lost the other night in
the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes.'
'I love the marshes,' said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
'Indeed! How old are you?' said the Dean.
'I don't know,' she answered.
'You must know about how old you are,' he said.
'Oh, about ninety,' she said, 'or more.'
'Ninety years!' exclaimed the Dean.
'No, ninety centuries,' she said; 'I am as old as the marshes.'
Then she told her story--how she had longed to be a human and go and
worship God, and have a soul and see the beauty of the world, and
how all the Wild Things had made her a soul of gossamer and mist and
music and strange memories.
'But if this is true,' said Dean Murnith, 'this is very wrong. God
cannot have intended you to have a soul.
'What is your name?'
'I have no name,' she answered.
'We must find a Christian name and a surname for you. What would you
like to be called?'
'Song of the Rushes,' she said.
'That won't do at all,' said the Dean.
'Then I would like to be called Terrible North Wind, or Star in the
Waters,' she said.
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