thony on the corner of the street waiting to
greet us. There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile,
dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale
blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her
thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to
dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that neglect and never has
forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all she could of our noble
friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had heard, or my coming
dinner, or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had
been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting. That I
had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical
experiments these young savages might try, the reader will admit when
informed of some of their performances.[82]

It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has
been my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work, that but
for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I
have; and on the other hand, it has been said that I forged the
thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is in a measure
true. With the cares of a large family, I might in time, like too many
women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had
not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary
labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently
deciding questions in which women had an equal interest, without an
equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand
in the midst of their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I
knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by
the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau
stuffed with facts was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John
Smith and the Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretations of
Bible texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut
out of some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some
disgraceful trial, injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from
stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write
articles for papers, or a petition to the Legislature, letters to the
faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or
Massachusetts, call on _The Lily_, _The Una_, _The Liberator_, and
_The Standard_, t