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 they were in moral sentiment as well as in affection.  There was not the slightest hesitancy exhibited.  The point touching her brother’s shame thrust in the background by the conviction of a higher duty, Mrs. Weld allowed it to trouble her no more, but, with her husband and sister, expressed a feeling of exultation in acknowledging the relationship of the youths, as a testimony and protest against the wickedness of that hate which had always trampled down the people of color because they were as God made them.

On Angelina’s return journey, Sarah, ever anxious about her, met her at Newark and accompanied her home.  A few weeks later, writing to Sarah Douglass an account of the Grimke boys, she says:—­

“They are very promising young men.  We all feel deeply interested in them, and I hope to be able to get together money enough to pay the college expenses of the younger.  I would rejoice to meet these entirely myself, but, not having the means, I intend to try and collect it somehow.  Angelina has not yet recovered from the effects of her journey and the excitement of seeing and talking to those boys, the president, etc.  When I met her she was so exhausted and excited that I felt very anxious, and when I found her brain and sight were so disordered that she could not see distinctly, even striking her head several times severely, and that she could not read, I was indeed alarmed.  But, notwithstanding all she had suffered, she has not for a moment regretted that she went.  She feels that a sacred duty has been performed, and rejoices that she had strength for it.”