h the dark,
silent room must have been at times a trifle wearisome. Angelina always
sat on a low seat beside her, with her head in her mother's lap, and
very rarely was the silence broken. The practice was kept up until the
mosquitoes obliged them to discontinue it. That it did not prove
entirely satisfactory, we judge from several entries in the diary like
the following:--

"I still sit in silence with dear mother, but feel very sensibly that
she takes no interest at all in it; still, I do not like to relinquish
the habit, believing it may yet be blessed. Eliza came this evening, as
she has several times before. It was a season of great deadness, and
yet I am glad to sit even thus, for where there is communion there will
be some union."

Her position was certainly a difficult and a painful one; for, apart
from other troubles, her eyes were now fully open to all the iniquities
of the slave system, and she could neither stay in nor go out without
having some of its miserable features forced upon her notice. In the
view of her after-work, it is interesting to note the beginning of her
strong feelings on the subject, as well as her faithful crusades
against it in her own family. In April, 1829, she writes as follows in
her diary:--

"Whilst returning from meeting this morning, I saw before me a colored
woman who in much distress was vindicating herself to two white boys,
one about eighteen, the other fifteen, who walked on each side of her.
The dreadful apprehension that they were leading her to the workhouse
crossed my mind, and I would have avoided her if I could. As I
approached, the younger said to her, 'I will have you tied up.' My
knees smote together, and my heart sank within me. As I passed them,
she exclaimed, 'Missis!' But I felt all I had to do was to suffer the
pain of seeing her. My lips were sealed, and my soul earnestly craved a
willingness to bear the exercise which was laid on me. How long, O
Lord, how long wilt thou suffer the foot of the oppressor to stand on
the neck of the slave! None but those who know from experience what it
is to live in a land of bondage can form any idea of what is endured by
those whose eyes are open to the enormities of slavery, and whose
hearts are tender enough to feel for these miserable creatures. For two
or three months after my return here it seemed to me that all the
cruelty and unkindness which I had from my infancy seen practised
towards them came back to my mind as