would
come to the conclusion that one has a soul. Choosing the safe side,
however, appeared to me to be playing rather a dastardly part. I had
never been an admirer of people who chose the safe side in everything;
indeed I had always entertained a thorough contempt for them. Surely it
would be showing more manhood to adopt the dangerous side, that of
disbelief; I almost resolved to do so--but yet in a question of so much
importance, I ought not to be guided by vanity. The question was not
which was the safe, but the true side? yet how was I to know which was
the true side? Then I thought of the Bible--which I had been reading in
the morning--that spoke of the soul and a future state; but was the Bible
true? I had heard learned and moral men say that it was true, but I had
also heard learned and moral men say that it was not: how was I to
decide? Still that balance of probabilities! If I could but see the way
of truth, I would follow it, if necessary, upon hands and knees; on that
I was determined; but I could not see it. Feeling my brain begin to turn
round, I resolved to think of something else; and forthwith began to
think of what had passed between Ursula and myself in our discourse
beneath the hedge.

I mused deeply on what she had told me as to the virtue of the females of
her race. How singular that virtue must be which was kept pure and
immaculate by the possessor, whilst indulging in habits of falsehood and
dishonesty. I had always thought the gypsy females extraordinary beings.
I had often wondered at them, their dress, their manner of speaking, and,
not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been
unacquainted with the most extraordinary point connected with them. How
came they possessed of this extraordinary virtue? was it because they
were thievish? I remembered that an ancient thief-taker, who had retired
from his useful calling, and who frequently visited the office of my
master at law, the respectable S. . ., who had the management of his
property--I remembered to have heard this worthy, with whom I
occasionally held discourse, philosophic and profound, when he and I
chanced to be alone together in the office, say that all first-rate
thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions
being kept in abeyance by their love of gain; but this axiom could
scarcely hold good with respect to these women--however thievish they
might be, they did care for somethin