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.