in which she might have
addressed newly-found legitimate nephews. After telling them that if
she had not suspected their relationship to herself, she should
probably not have written them, she questions them on various points,
showing her desire to be useful to them, and adds, "I want to talk to
you face to face, and am thinking seriously of going on to your
Commencement in June." A few lines further on she says:--

"I will not dwell on the past: let all that go. It cannot be altered.
Our work is in the present, and duty calls upon us now so to use the
past as to convert its curse into a blessing. I am glad you have taken
the name of Grimke. It was once one of the noblest names of Carolina.
You, my young friends, now bear this _once_ honored name. I charge you
most solemnly, by your upright conduct and your life-long devotion to
the eternal principles of justice and humanity and religion, to lift
this name out of the dust where it now lies, and set it once more
among the princes of our land."

Other letters passed between them until the youths had told all their
history, so painful in its details that Angelina, after glancing at
it, put it aside, and for months had not the courage to read it. When
June came, though far from well, she summoned up strength and
resolution to do as she had proposed in the spring. Accompanied by her
oldest son, she attended the Lincoln University Commencement, and made
the personal acquaintance of Francis and Archibald Grimke. She found
them good-looking, intelligent, and gentlemanly young men; and she
took them by the hand, and, to president and professors, acknowledged
their claim upon her. She also invited them to visit her at her home,
assuring them of a kind reception from every member of her family. She
remained a week at Lincoln University, going over with these young men
all the details of their treatment by their brother Montague, and of
the treatment of the slaves in all the Grimke families. These details
brought back freshly to her mind the horrors which had haunted her
life in Charleston, and she lived them all over again, even in her
dreams. She had been miserably weak and worn for some time before
going to Lincoln; and the mental distress she now went through
affected her nervous system to such an extent that there is no doubt
her life was shortened by it.

The hearty concurrence of every member of the family in the course
resolved on towards the nephews shows how united the