Lewis studied very hard, and made excellent progress. The difficulties that formerly troubled him now disappeared, for he had a teacher whom he could consult upon every word. Miss Ford gave him a few pence to buy candles with, and all his evenings were spent in assiduous devotion to his new task. The thoughts of his new acquisitions made him so happy that he worked more diligently, and appeared far more cheerful than formerly. Mr. Johns observed it, and remarked that the boy had turned out "a better bargain than he expected." When it was known in the house that Miss Ford was teaching Lewis, there was some consultation about it, and Mr. Johns approached the lady with a long face, to talk the matter over. However, she had altogether the advantage of him, for she laughed most uncontrollably at his concern, assured him that this was her intellectual play, and that she enjoyed the matter very much as she would teaching tricks to a parrot or monkey. "Surely, now, you would not deprive me of such an innocent amusement," said she, with mock lamentation. "No; but my dear Miss Ford," said the gentleman, trying to appear serious, "it is not best for these people to know too much." "O, that is too good!" she replied, with a laugh. "Do you expect him to rival a Henry Clay or an Andrew Jackson?" and then she went on telling some such funny mistakes and ludicrous blunders of the boy, that Mr. Johns could resist no longer, and he joined in the laugh. There was evidently no such thing as pinning her fast to serious reasoning on the subject, and as she stood very high in Mr. John's good graces, he concluded he might about as well let her do as she liked. She had been a long time in the family, and as they had seen no ultra-abolition traits, they thought her "sound at heart" on that subject. And so she was; for had she known the true situation of the slaves, all the better feelings of her noble soul would have risen up in rebellion against the groundwork of the abominable "institution." But as the slaves were kept very much apart from the family, and by their master's peculiar training had very little to say when they did make their appearance, she had very little opportunity to study the workings of the system, if she had been disposed to do so, and very little to excite her curiosity about it. As Lewis by degrees gained the good opinion of his teacher, and flattered her by his rapid progress, so she gradually became interested in his early history, and especially in his early failures in learning to read. She was quite indignant at the opposition he had experienced, and her expressions of surprise at the treatment he received, led him to tell of greater cruelties that he had seen practised on others, and so on to the story of his mother. She took a deep interest in all his details, and he was never at a loss for something to tell.