or planning the tour, organizing the
meetings, and delivering her new lecture, "The True Woman."

"I am having fine audiences of thinking men and women," she wrote Mary
Hallowell. "Oh, if we could but make our meetings ring like those of
the antislavery people, wouldn't the world hear us? But to do that we
must have souls baptized into the work and consecrated to it."[108]

Some souls were deeply stirred by the woman's rights gospel. One of
these was the wealthy Boston merchant, Charles F. Hovey, who in his
will left $50,000 in trust to Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd
Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, Abby Kelley Foster, and others, to be
spent for the "promotion of the antislavery cause and other reforms,"
among them woman's rights, and not less than $8,000 a year to be spent
to promote these reforms. With all this financial help available,
Susan expected great things to happen.

* * * * *

During the winter of 1860 while the legislature was in session, Susan
spent six weeks in Albany with Lydia Mott, and day after day she
climbed the long hill to the capitol to interview legislators on
amendments to the married women's property laws. When these amendments
were passed by the Senate, Assemblyman Anson Bingham urged her to
bring their mutual friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to Albany to speak
before his committee to assure passage by the Assembly.

Once again Susan hurried to Seneca Falls, and unpacking her little
portmanteau stuffed with papers and statistics, discussed the subject
with Mrs. Stanton in front of the open fire late into the night. Then
the next morning while Mrs. Stanton shut herself up in the quietest
room in the house to write her speech, Susan gave the children their
breakfast, sent the older ones off to school, watched over the babies,
prepared the desserts, and made herself generally useful. By this time
the children regarded her affectionately as "Aunt Thusan," and they
knew they must obey her, for she was a stern disciplinarian whom even
the mischievous Stanton boys dared not defy.

These visits of Susan's were happy, satisfying times for both these
young women. A few days' respite from travel in a well-run home with
a friend she admired did wonders for Susan, giving her perspective on
the work she had already done and courage to tackle new problems,
while for Mrs. Stanton this short period of stimulating companionship
and freedom from household cares was a godsend. "M