"My dear Oliver," cried Howard, "this is all owing to you: _you_ discovered--"
"No, no, no!" interrupted Oliver, precipitately: "all that I did was accident; all that you did was not accident. You first made me love you, by teaching me that I was not a blockhead, and by freeing me from--"
"_A tyrant_, you were going to say," cried Holloway, colouring deeply; "and, if you had, you'd have said the truth. I thought; Howard, _afterwards_, that you were a brave fellow for taking his part, I confess. But, Oliver, I thought you had forgiven me for all these things."
"Forgiven! Oh yes, to be sure," cried little Oliver; "I wasn't thinking of myself, or you either; I was only thinking of Howard's good nature; and then," continued he, "Howard was just as good to the mulatto woman as he was to me--wasn't he, Cuba?"
"That he was!" replied the poor woman; and, looking at Mrs. Howard, added, "Massa's _heart_ as good as hers."
"And his _head's_ as good as his heart, which makes it all better still," continued Oliver, with enthusiasm. "Mr. Russell, you know how hard he worked at that translation, to earn money to support poor Cuba, and to paper the room, and to pay the bricklayer _for_ the smoky chimney: these things were not done by accident, were they? though it was by accident that I happened to observe Cuba's curious thimble."
"There are some people," interrupted Mr. Russell, "who, by accident, never observe any thing. We will not allow you, Oliver, to call your quick habit of observation accident; your excellent capacity will--"
"_My_ excellent capacity," repeated Oliver, with unfeigned surprise: "why, you know, I get by rote slower than any body in the world."
"You may," said Dr. B., "notwithstanding, have an excellent capacity: much may be learned without books; much more with books, Oliver; but, for your comfort, you need not learn them by rote."
"I'm glad of it, heartily," cried Oliver; "but this put something out of my head that I was in a great hurry to say--O, one other thing about _accident_. It was not _accident_, but it was Howard's sense, in persuading me not to put into the lottery, that was the very cause of Dr. B.'s giving me the choice of all the things in the Jew's box--was it not?"