“It’s the self that makes love possible,” said Eppie, taking her hand and looking up at her. “Do you want to lose me, Aunt Barbara? If you lose yourself you will have to lose me too, you know.” Miss Barbara stood perplexed but not at all convinced by these subtleties, turning mild eyes of query upon Gavan and evidently expecting him to furnish the obvious retort. “We will all be at one with God,” she reverently said at length, finding that her ally left the defense to her. Eppie met this large retort cheerfully. “You can’t love God unless you have a self to love him with. I know what you mean, and perhaps I agree with what you really mean; but I want to correct your Buddhistic tendencies and to keep you a good Christian.” “I humbly hope I’m that. You shouldn’t jest on such subjects, Eppie dear.” “I’m not one bit jesting,” Eppie protested. And now Gavan asked, while Miss Barbara looked gratefully at him, sure of his backing, though she might not quite be able to understand his methods, “Are they such different creeds?” Still holding her aunt’s hand and still looking up into her face, Eppie answered: “One is despair of life, the other trust in life. One takes all meaning out of life and the other fills it with meaning. The secret of one is to lose life, and the secret of the other to gain it. There is all the difference in the world between them; all the difference between life and death.” “As interpreted by Western youth and vigor, yes; but what of the mystics? I suppose you would call them Christians?” “Yes, dear, they are Christians. What of them?” Miss Barbara echoed, though slightly perturbed by this alliance with heathendom. “Buddhists, not Christians,” Eppie retorted. “That’s what I mean; in essentials they are the same creed: the differences are only the differences of the races or individuals who hold them.” At this Miss Barbara’s free hand began to flutter and protest. “Oh, but, Gavan dear, there I’m quite sure that you are wrong. Buddhism is, I don’t doubt, a very noble religion, but it’s not the true one. Indeed they are not the same, Gavan, though Christianity, of course, is founded on the renunciation of self. ‘Lose your life to gain it,’ Eppie dear.” “Yes, to gain it, that’s just the point. One renounces, and one wins a realer self.” “What is real? What is life?” Gavan asked, really curious to hear her definition. She only needed a moment to find it, and, with her answer, gave him her first glance during their battledore colloquy with innocent Aunt Barbara as the shuttlecock. “Selves and love.” “Well, of course, dear,” Miss Barbara cried. “That’s what heaven will be. All love and peace and rest.” “But you have left out the selves; you won’t get love without them. And as for rest and peace--Love is made by difference, so that as long as there is love there must be restlessness.” “Isn’t it made by sameness?” Gavan asked.