:--

"I know not where I might have been landed, had not the merciful
interposition of Providence stopped my progress."

This "merciful interposition of Providence" was nothing less than the
declining health of her father; and it affords, indeed, a curious
comment on the old Orthodox teachings, that this young woman, devotedly
attached to her father, and fully appreciating his value to his family,
should have regarded his ill-health as sent by God for her especial
benefit, to interrupt her worldly course, and compass her salvation.

Judge Grimke's illness continued for a year or more; and so faithfully
did Sarah nurse him that when it was decided that he should go to
Philadelphia to consult Dr. Physic, she was chosen to accompany him.

This first visit to the North was the most important event of Sarah's
life, for the influences and impressions there received gave some shape
to her vague and wayward fancies, and showed her a gleam of the light
beyond the tangled path which still stretched before her.

She found lodgings for her father and herself in a Quaker family whose
name is not mentioned. About their life there, little is said; Sarah
being too much occupied with the care of her dear invalid to take much
interest in her new surroundings. Judge Grimke's health continued to
decline. His daughter's account of the last days of his life is very
touching, and shows not only how deep was her religious feeling, but
how tender and yet how strong she was all through this great trial. The
father and daughter, strangers in a strange land, drawn more closely
together by his suffering and her necessary care, became friends.
indeed; their attachment increasing day by day, until, ere their final
separation, they loved each other with that fervent affection which
grows only with true sympathy and unbounded confidence. Sarah thus
wrote of it:--

"I regard this as the greatest blessing, next to my conversion, I have
ever received from God, and I think if all my future life is passed in
affliction this mercy alone should make me willingly, yea, cheerfully
and joyously, submit to the chastisements of the Lord."

During their stay in Philadelphia, she had hoped for her father's
recovery, but when, by the doctor's advice, they went to Long Branch,
and she saw how weak and ill he was, this hope forsook her, and she
describes her agony as something never to be effaced from her memory.
Doubtless this was intensified by her lone and fr