SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER YE XIX. As we sat this even of the great chamber, saith _Father_:-- "_Stafford_, do you remember our talk some days gone, touching what manner of life there should be in Heaven?" "That do I well," Sir _Robert_ made answer. "Well," quoth _Father_, "I have fallen to think more thereupon. And the thought comes to me--wherefore account we always that we shall do but one thing there, and that all shall do the same? Here is _Milisent_-- ay, and _Lettice_ too--that think they should be weary to sit of a cloud and sing for ever and ever." "Truly, so should I, methinks," saith Sir _Robert_. "So should we all, I cast no doubt," answers _Father_, "if our capacity for fatigue did extend into that life. But why expect the same thing over and over? It is not so on earth. I am not reading, nor is _Lettice_ sewing, nor _Milisent_ broidering, with no intermission, from the morning to the night. Neither do we all the same fashion of work." "Ay," saith Aunt _Joyce_, somewhat eagerly; "but the work done here below is needful, _Aubrey_. There shall be no necessity for nought there." "Art avised o' that, _Joyce_?" saith _Father_. "Why," saith she, "dost look for brooms and dusters in Heaven? Shall _Bess_ and I sweep out the gold streets, thinkest, or fetch a pan to seethe the fruits of the Tree of Life?" "One would think," saith Sir _Robert_, "if all be allegorical, as some wise doctors do say, that they should be shadowy brooms that swept parabolical streets." "Allegorical fiddlesticks!" quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "I did never walk yet o'er a parabolical paving, nor sat me down to rest me of an allegorical chair. Am I to be allegorical, forsooth? You be a poor comforter, Sir _Robert_." "Soft you now!" saith _Father_. "I enter a _caveat_, as lawyers have it. Methinks I have walked for some years o'er a parabolical paving, and rested me in many an allegorical chair. Thou minglest somewhat too much the spiritual and the material, _Joyce_." "I count I take thee, _Audrey_," saith she: "thou wouldst say that the allegorical city is for the dwelling of the spirit, and the real for the body. But, pray you, if my spirit have a dwelling in thine allegorical city--" "Nay, I said not the city were allegorical," quoth he. "Burden not me withal, for in truth I do believe it very real." "No, that was Sir _Robert_," saith she, "so I will ask at him, as shall be but fair. Where, I pray you, is my body to be, Sir, whilst my soul dwelleth in your parabolical city?" "There shall be a spiritual body, my mistress," makes he answer, smiling. "Truth," quoth she, "but I reckon it must be somewhere. It seems me, to my small wit, that if my soul and my spiritual body be to dwell in an allegorical city, then I must needs be allegorical also. And I warrant you, that should not like me a whit." "Let us not mingle differences," saith _Father_. "Be the spiritual and the allegorical but one thing?"