hey had a
brother who remained in South Carolina, where he was a prominent
citizen and a large slave-owner. Like many sharing the privileges of
"the institution," he led a double life. He was married to a white
woman by whom he had children. He also had a family by a colored woman
who was one of his slaves. In his will he bequeathed his slave family
to a son by his lawful wife, with the stipulation that they should not
be sold or unkindly treated.

Of these things the Grimke sisters knew nothing until after the war
which had freed their illegitimate relatives. Then all the facts came
to their knowledge. What should they do about it? was the question
that immediately confronted them. Should they--"Carolina's high-souled
daughters," as Whittier describes them, and not without some part in
the pride of the family to which they belonged--acknowledge such a
disreputable relationship? Not a day nor an hour did they hesitate.
They sent for their unfortunate kinspeople, accepted them as blood
connections, and took upon themselves the duty of promoting their
interests as far as it was in their power to do so.

Although a quiet and retiring person, and, moreover, so much of an
invalid that the greater part of her time was necessarily passed in a
bed of sickness, a New England woman had much to do with publishing
the doctrines of Abolitionism, through the lips of the most eloquent
man in the country. She was the wife of Wendell Phillips, the noted
Anti-Slavery lecturer.

"My wife made me an Abolitionist," said Phillips. How the work was
done is not without its romantic interest.

It was several years before he made his meteoric appearance before the
public as a platform talker, and while yet a law student, that
Phillips met the lady in question. The interview, as described by one
of the parties, certainly had its comical aspect. "I talked
Abolitionism to him all the time we were together," said Mrs.
Phillips, as she afterwards related the affair. Phillips listened, and
that he was not surfeited nor disgusted appears from the fact that he
went again and again for that sort of entertainment.

When Phillips asked for her hand, as the story goes, she asked him if
he was fully persuaded to be a friend of the slave, leaving him to
infer that their union was otherwise impossible.

"My life shall attest the sincerity of my conversion," was his gallant
reply.

CHAPTER XIV

MOBS

In his _Recollections_, the Rev. Samuel