"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he smiling.
"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton? perhaps I deserve it."
"You do not think that," said he with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"
"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr. Carleton?"
"To some people, yes!--But the expression is so subtle that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."
"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton;--I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far--too far--to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges one's field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."
"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's----where did yours go?" said he suddenly turning round upon her.
Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had perhaps more than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so intelligent and sympathetic that she was abashed.
"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life," Mr. Carleton said after a while.
Fieda's heart throbbed an answer; she did not speak.