Late in the autumn she sailed for Charleston, and was received by the home circle with affection, though her plain dress gave occasion for some slighting remarks.  These, however, no longer affected her as they once had done, and she bore them in silence.  Surrounded by her family, all of whom she warmly loved, in spite of their want of sympathy with her, rooming with her “precious child,” with full opportunity to counsel and direct her, and intent upon carrying out reform in the household, she was for a time almost contented.  She took up her old routine, her charities, and her schools, and attended meeting regularly.  But a very few weeks sufficed to make her realize her utter inability to harmonize the discordant elements in her home, or to make more than a transient impression upon her mother.  Day by day she became more discouraged; everything seemed to conspire to thwart her efforts for good, which were misconstrued and misunderstood.  Surrounded, too, and besieged by all the familiar influences of her old life, it became harder to sustain her peculiar views and habits, and spiritual luke-warmness gained rapidly upon her.  With deep humility she acknowledged the mistake she had made in going back to Charleston, which place was evidently not the vineyard in which she could labor to any profit.

In July she was again in Philadelphia, a member now of the family of Catherine Morris, sister to Israel.  Here she remained until after her admission into Friends’ Society, when, feeling it her duty to make herself independent of the friends who had been so kind to her, she cast about her for something to do, and was mortified and chagrined to find there was nothing suited to her capacity.

“Oh!” she exclaims, “had I received the education I desired, had I been bred to the profession of the law, I might have been a useful member of society, and instead of myself and my property being taken care of, I might have been a protector of the helpless, a pleader for the poor and unfortunate.”

The industrial avenues for women were few and narrow in those days; and for the want of some practical knowledge, the doors Sarah Grimke might have entered were closed to her, and she was finally forced to abandon her hopes of independence, and to again accept a home for the winter in Israel Morris’s house, now in the city.  It must not be supposed, however, that either here or at Catherine’s, where she afterwards made her steady home, she was a burden or a hindrance.  She was too energetic and too conscientious to be a laggard anywhere.  So kind and so thoughtful was she, so helpful in sickness, so sympathetic in joy and in sorrow, that she more than earned her frugal board wherever she went.  Could she only have been persuaded that it was right to yield to her naturally cheerful temper, she would have been a delightful companion at all times; but her sadness frequently affected her friends, and even drew forth an occasional reproof.  The ministry, that dreadful requirement which she felt sure the Lord would make of her, was ever before her, and in fear and trembling she awaited the moment when the command would be given, “Arise and speak.”