“One of Worthington’s greatest difficulties in parting with these slaves was, that it would leave his wife destitute of servants.  I pitied her, and felt it right to express my sympathy.  I told her my compassion was increased, because I apprehended there was a struggle in her own breast between duty and interest; and I appealed to her whether she did not know it was a duty to let them go, though personal interest would induce her to keep them in her service.  I was glad to perceive that these remarks enabled her to relieve herself of a weight—­her countenance brightened up, and she appeared 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 goeth away and forgetteth what