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?"

"Nay, I believe there be two," saith Aunt _Joyce_: "'tis Sir _Robert_
here would have them alike."

"But how would you define them?" saith Sir _Robert_ to _Father_.

"Thus," he made answer. "The spiritual is that which is real, as fully
as the material: but it is invisible. The allegorical is that which is
shadowy and doth but exist in the fantasy. If I say of these my
daughters, they be my jewels, I speak allegorically: for they be not
gems, but maidens. But I do not love them in an allegory, but in
reality. Love is a moral and spiritual matter, but no allegory. So,
Heaven is a spiritual place, but methinks not an allegorical one."

"But the _New Jerusalem_--the Golden City which lieth four-square--that
is allegorical, surely!"

"We shall see when we are there," saith _Father_. "I think not."

Sir _Robert_ pursed up his lips as though he could no wise allow the
same.

"Mind you, _Robin_," saith _Father_, "I say not that there may not be
allegory touching some of the details.