In an instant her eyes flashed. “I more than like it; it feeds me. Knowledge has its vistas too,” she added with an arch look, the first he had seen on her hitherto serious countenance. “I can never outgrow my recognition of the portals it discloses or the fairyland it opens up to every inquiring eye.”
“Even geometry,” he ventured, more anxious to probe this fresh young mind than he had ever been to sound the opinions of the most notable men of the day.
“Even geometry,” she smiled. “To be sure its portals are somewhat methodical in shape, allowing no scope to the fancy, but from its triangles and circles have been born the grandeurs of architecture, and upright on the threshold of its exact laws and undeviating calculations, I see an angel with a golden rod in his hand, measuring the heavens.”
“Even a stone speaks to a poet,” said Mr. Sylvester with a glance at Miss Belinda.
“But Paula is no poet,” returned that lady with strict and impartial honesty. “She has never put a line on paper to my knowledge. Have you child?”
“No aunt, I would as soon imprison a falling sunbeam or try to catch the breeze that lifts my hair or kisses my cheek.”
“You see,” continued Mr. Sylvester still looking at Miss Belinda.
She answered with a doubtful shake of the head and an earnest glance at the girl as if she perceived something in that bright young soul, that even she had never observed before.