is the same life--we
don't know what it is. The part of you that you say goes to Heaven must
be that life. If you ask me what I think, I think the greater part of
what you call mind is part of your body. If your body can live a spirit
life, so can it; but it would need as much changing first.'

It was most extraordinary to him to see the avidity with which she drank
in his words, and also the intelligence with which she seemed to master
them, for she cried--

'What's i' the soael then? When ye _will_ to do a thing agen all costs,
is that i' the soael?'

'Certainly the spirit must be the self, and the will, as far as we know,
is that self--more that self than anything else is.' He spoke in the
pleased tone of a schoolmaster who finds that the mind beneath his
touch is being moulded into the right shape; and besides he supposed he
could question her next.

'I _knowed_ that,' she said, with an intensity of conviction that
confounded her listener, 'I _knowed_ the soael was will.'

'It must be intelligence, and will, and probably memory,' he said,
beguiled into the idea that she was interested in the nicety of his
theory, 'but not in any sense that activity of mind which shows itself
in the opinions most men conceive so important.'

But of this she took no heed. 'When a man's off his head or par'lysed,
wi' no more life in him than babe unborn--yet when he's living and not
dead--where's his soael then? Parson he says the soael's sleeping inside
him afore going to glory, like a grub afore it turns into a fly; but I
asked him how he knowed, and he just said he knowed, an' I mun b'lieve,
and that's no way to answer an honest woman.'

'He did not really know.'

'Well, tell what you knows,' she said.

'Indeed, I do not know anything about it.'

'Ye doaen't know!'

'I do not know.'

The animation of hope slowly faded from her face, giving place to a look
of bitter disappointment. It was as if a little child, suddenly denied
some darling wish, should have strength to restrain its tears and mutely
acquiesce in the inevitable.

'Then there's nowt to say,' she said, rising, sullen in the first moment
of pain.

'But you'll tell me why you have asked?' he begged; 'I am very sorry
indeed that I cannot answer.'

'Noae, I'll not tell ye, fur it's no concern o' yours; but thank ye
kindly, sir, all the same. Yer an honest man. Good-day.'

With that she walked resolutely away, nor would she accept his offer of
payment for