uld I have recalled it if I
could.

"My greatest trial is the continued opposition of my precious sister
Sarah. She thinks I have been given over to blindness of mind, and that
I do not know light from darkness, right from wrong. Her grief is that
I cannot see it was wrong in me ever to have written the letter at all,
and she seems to think I deserve all the suffering I have brought upon
myself."

We approach now the most interesting period in the lives of the two
sisters. A new era was about to dawn upon them; their quiet, peaceful
routine was to be disturbed; a path was opening for them, very
different from the one which had hitherto been indicated, and for which
their long and painful probation had eminently prepared them. Angelina
was the first to see it, the first to venture upon it, and for a time
she travelled it alone, unsustained by her beloved sister, and feeling
herself condemned by all her nearest friends.

CHAPTER XI.

All through the winter of 1835-36, demonstrations of violence continued
to be made against the friends of emancipation throughout the country.
The reign of terror inaugurated in 1832 threatened to crush out the
grandest principles of our Constitution. Freedom of press and speech
became by-words, and personal liberty was in constant danger. A man or
woman needed only to be pointed out as an abolitionist to be insulted
and assaulted. No anti-slavery meetings could be held uninterrupted by
the worst elements of rowdyism, instigated by men in high position. In
vain the authorities were appealed to for protection; they declared
their inability to afford it. The few newspapers that dared to express
disapproval of such disregard of the doctrine of equal rights were
punished by the withdrawal of subscriptions and advertisements, while
the majority of the public press teemed with the vilest slanders
against the noble men and women who, in spite of mobs and social
ostracism, continued to sow anti-slavery truths so diligently that new
converts were made every day, and the very means taken to impose upon
public opinion enlightened it more and more.[3]

[3] Apropos of sowing anti-slavery truths, I remember seeing at the
first anti-slavery fair I attended,--in 1853, I think,--a sampler
made in 1836 by a little girl, a pupil in a school where evidently
great pains were taken to propagate anti-slavery principles. On the
sampler was neatly worked the words: "May the points of our needl