e religion I ever heard of. You DO love one
another--you DO bear one another's burdens--you DO realize that a little
child is a type of the kingdom of heaven. You are more Christian than
any people I ever saw. But--how about death? And the life everlasting?
What does your religion teach about eternity?"

"Nothing," said Ellador. "What is eternity?"

What indeed? I tried, for the first time in my life, to get a real hold
on the idea.

"It is--never stopping."

"Never stopping?" She looked puzzled.

"Yes, life, going on forever."

"Oh--we see that, of course. Life does go on forever, all about us."

"But eternal life goes on WITHOUT DYING."

"The same person?"

"Yes, the same person, unending, immortal." I was pleased to think
that I had something to teach from our religion, which theirs had never
promulgated.

"Here?" asked Ellador. "Never to die--here?" I could see her practical
mind heaping up the people, and hurriedly reassured her.

"Oh no, indeed, not here--hereafter. We must die here, of course, but
then we 'enter into eternal life.' The soul lives forever."

"How do you know?" she inquired.

"I won't attempt to prove it to you," I hastily continued. "Let us
assume it to be so. How does this idea strike you?"

Again she smiled at me, that adorable, dimpling, tender, mischievous,
motherly smile of hers. "Shall I be quite, quite honest?"

"You couldn't be anything else," I said, half gladly and half a little
sorry. The transparent honesty of these women was a never-ending
astonishment to me.

"It seems to me a singularly foolish idea," she said calmly. "And if
true, most disagreeable."

Now I had always accepted the doctrine of personal immortality as
a thing established. The efforts of inquiring spiritualists, always
seeking to woo their beloved ghosts back again, never seemed to me
necessary. I don't say I had ever seriously and courageously discussed
the subject with myself even; I had simply assumed it to be a fact.
And here was the girl I loved, this creature whose character constantly
revealed new heights and ranges far beyond my own, this superwoman of a
superland, saying she thought immortality foolish! She meant it, too.

"What do you WANT it for?" she asked.

"How can you NOT want it!" I protested. "Do you want to go out like a
candle? Don't you want to go on and on--growing and--and--being happy,
forever?"

"Why, no," she said. "I don't in the least. I want my child--and my
child