“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?”