d quite willing I
should take them away. She showed great kindness to Harriet and
her children, and evidently felt deeply moved at parting with
the nurse, who had thrice been with her through nature's sorest
trials. She appeared to me to be a nice lady-like person; and,
if I judge aright, she knows what estimate ought to be placed
upon slavery in a woman's mind.

"Those who know me will not suspect that I sought to conceal my
abolition, even in the hot-bed of slavery. Yet I assure thee I
had no intention of making it a common topic of conversation,
unless the way appeared to open; but thy experience, I doubt
not, as well as mine, proves that it is ever opening. The most
we need to do is to embrace opportunities, without seeking to
make them. I had not expected to say as much as I did, but it
was such a curiosity for a Quaker to be seen in such company,
that it was soon universally known why I had come and what I had
done. This gave rise to many conversations with slave holders,
which I trust did some good. I was astonished at their extreme
ignorance concerning the laboring population of the North. Thou
wilt perhaps be surprised to hear me assert that slave holders
do not know what slavery is. Still more strange will it seem
when I tell thee that thy old friend was highly complimented by
them for his prudence and discretion! The story had become
current that I would not talk to Sam till I had settled the
business with his master; and as they generally professed to
believe that abolitionists wished to incite the slave against
their master, by every mischievous incentive they could devise,
my conduct naturally enough seemed to them remarkable. I told
them I must honestly abjure such complimentary language; for, so
far from being what they would consider discreet, I was in fact
an abolitionist of the most ultra school. I assured them that
most of my associates at the North would have proceeded as I had
done, and some of them probably with more discretion. I like
much better to talk to a southerner on slavery than with a
northern apologist. I regard him as far less mean. There is a
mind to be appealed to for _facts_, and there is a feeling that
can be reached by a simple testimony of republican truth. In
this, the slave holder sometimes 'sees his face as in a glass;
but he