"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.
"No, no, no," said Dean Murnith; "that is quite impossible. We could call you Miss Rush if you like. How would Mary Rush do? Perhaps you had better have another name—say Mary Jane Rush."
So the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes took the names that were offered her, and became Mary Jane Rush.
"And we must find something for you to do," said Dean Murnith. "Meanwhile we can give you a room here."
"I don't want to do anything," replied Mary Jane; "I want to worship God in the cathedral and live beside the marshes."
Then Mrs. Murnith came in, and for the rest of that day Mary Jane stayed at the house of the Dean.
And there with her new soul she perceived the beauty of the world; for it came grey and level out of misty distances, and widened into grassy fields and ploughlands right up to the edge of an old gabled town; and solitary in the fields far off an ancient windmill stood, and his honest hand-made
