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.

Could it be that slavery was so bad, that she was surrounded by these
suffering creatures, and was doing nothing for them? She made inquiries
of others prudently, and found that it was even so, and more too; that
even she herself was not at liberty to speak out her sentiments about
it. But sh