conflict, and in their own home found a harbor of rest,
for quiet though useful occupation. In company with my husband and
Charles Stuart, a Scotch Abolitionist, we took one of those long
closely-covered stages peculiar to New Jersey, for a twelve miles
drive to Belleville, where at the door of an old Dutch-built stone
house, Theodore Weld and the famous daughters of South Carolina gave
us a welcome. There was nothing attractive at first sight in those
plain, frail women, except their rich voices, fluent language, and
Angelina's fine dark eyes. The house with its wide hall, spacious
apartments, deep windows, and small panes of glass was severely
destitute of all tasteful, womanly touches, and though neat and
orderly, had a cheerless atmosphere. Neither was there one touch of
the artistic in the arrangement of the ladies' hair and dresses. They
were just then in the Graham dispensation, and the peculiar table
arrangements, with no tray to mark the charmed circle whence the usual
beverages were dispensed, the cold dishes without a whiff of heat, or
steam, gave one a feeling of strangeness; all those delightful
associations gathering round a covered dish and hot beefsteak, the
tea-pot and china cups and saucers, were missing. A cool evening in
the month of May, after a long drive had left us in a condition
peculiarly susceptible to the attractions of something hot and
stimulating; but they came not. There was no catering in this
household to the weaknesses of those who were not yet weaned from the
flesh-pots of Egypt. The sharp edge of our appetite somewhat dulled
with the simple fare, we were thrown on our own resources, and
memories of tea and coffee for stimulus.

After our repast, the high discourse was slightly interrupted by the
appearance of the infant, Charles Stuart Weld, and his formal
presentation to the distinguished gentleman after whom he was named.
And when Mr. Weld told us how near the boy, in the initiative steps of
his existence, came to being sacrificed to a theory, the old stone
walls rang with bursts of laughter.[74] But the chilling environments
of these noble people were modified by the sincere hospitality with
which we were received. My husband and Mr. Weld had been classmates in
Lane Seminary, and were among the students who left that institution
when the discussion of the slavery question was forbidden by the
President, Dr. Lyman Beecher. They talked with zest of those early
days until a late hou