"What is singular?" asked Fanny, looking curiously at her companion. "Why, that I should have been so mistaken. I doubted not, for a moment, that the person I saw was Mr. Lyon." Fanny did not look up. If she had done so, the gaze fixed upon her would have sent a deeper crimson to her cheek than flushed it a few moments before. "Have you any skill in reading character, Fanny?" asked Mr. Allison, in a changed and rather animated voice, and with a manner that took away the constraint that had, from the first, oppressed the mind of the young girl. "No very great skill, I imagine," was the smiling answer. "It is a rare, but valuable gift," said the old man. "I was about to call it an art; but it is more a gift than an art; for, if not possessed by nature, it is too rarely acquired. Yet, in all pure minds, there is something that we may call analogous--a perception of moral qualities in those who approach us. Have you never felt an instinctive repugnance to a person on first meeting him?" "Oh, yes." "And been as strongly attracted in other cases?" "Often." "Have you ever compared this impression with your subsequent knowledge of the person's character?" Fanny thought for a little while, and then said-- "I am not sure that I have, Mr. Allison." "You have found yourself mistaken in persons after some acquaintance with them?" "Yes; more than once." "And I doubt not, that if you had observed the impression these persons made on you when you met them for the first time, you would have found that impression a true index to their character. Scarcely noticing these first impressions, which are instinctive perceptions of moral qualities, we are apt to be deceived by the exterior which almost every one assumes on a first acquaintance; and then, if we are not adepts at reading character, we may be a long time in finding out the real quality. Too often this real character is manifested, after we have formed intimate relations with the person, that may not be dissolved while the heart knows a life-throb. Is that not a serious thought, Fanny?" "It is, Mr. Allison,--a very serious, and a solemn thought." "Do you think that you clearly comprehend my meaning?" "I do not know that I see all you wish me to comprehend," answered Fanny. "May I attempt to make it clearer?" "I always listen to you with pleasure and profit, Mr. Allison," said Fanny. "Did you ever think that your soul had senses as well as your body?" inquired the old man. "You ask me a strange question. How can a mere spirit--an airy something, so to speak--have senses?"