e foot to the
other; he managed to get his hands free, and put them behind him for
further security. And what do you think he said? All he said was, "Is
it?" Miss Freeman thought a third party in the way, and slipped out. As
she was going upstairs, she heard a quick step behind her, and Whittier
took her by the shoulder and shook her, saying as if angry, "Alice
Freeman, I believe thee has been laughing at me!" She could not deny
it. "What would thee do, Alice Freeman, if a man thee never saw should
come up in that way to thee, take both hands, and tell thee it was the
supreme moment of his life?"

Probably the most seriously dangerous position in which he was ever
placed was on the occasion of the looting and burning of Pennsylvania
Hall, in the spring of 1838. His editorial office was in the building,
and for two or three days the mob had been threatening its destruction
before they accomplished it. It was not safe for him to go into the
street except in disguise. And yet it was at this very time that he
wrote the following humorous skit, never before in print. Theodore D.
Weld had the year before made a contract of perpetual bachelorhood with
Whittier, and yet he chose this troublous time to marry the eloquent
South Carolina Quakeress, Angelina Grimke, who had freed her slaves and
come North to rouse the people, and was creating a sensation on the
lecture platform. Her burning words in Pennsylvania Hall had helped to
make the mob furious. Whittier's humorous arraignment of his friend for
breaking his promise of celibacy was written at this critical time, and
he was obliged to disguise himself when he carried his epithalamium on
the wedding night to the door of the bridegroom. He had been invited to
assist at the wedding service, but as the bride was marrying "out of
society," Whittier's orthodoxy compelled him to decline the invitation.

"Alack and alas! that a brother of mine,
A bachelor sworn on celibacy's altar,
Should leave me to watch by the desolate shrine,
And stoop his own neck to the enemy's halter!
Oh the treason of Benedict Arnold was better
Than the scoffing at Love, and then _sub rosa_ wooing;
This mocking at Beauty, yet wearing her fetter--
Alack and alas for such bachelor doing!

"Oh the weapons of Saul are the Philistine's prey!
Who shall stand when the heart of the champion fails him;
Who strive when the mighty his shield casts away,
And