But light was coming, and her sorrowful questionings were soon to be answered.

It was not long before Mrs. Parker saw that her guest’s cheerfulness was assumed, and only thinly veiled some great trouble.  As they became more intimate, she questioned her affectionately, and soon drew from her the whole story of her sorrows and her perplexities, and her great need of a friend to feel for her and advise her.  Mrs. Parker became this friend, and, though differing from her on some essential points, did much to help and strengthen her.  For many days slavery was the only topic discussed between them, and then one morning Angelina entered the breakfast-room with a beaming countenance, and said:—­

“It has all come to me; God has shown me what I can do; I can write an appeal to Southern women, one which, thus inspired, will touch their hearts, and lead them to use their influence with their husbands and brothers.  I will speak to them in such tones that they must hear me, and, through me, the voice of justice and humanity.”

This appeal was begun that very day, but before she had written many pages, she was interrupted in her task by a letter which threw her into a state of great agitation, and added to her perplexity.  This letter was from Elizur Wright, then secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the office of which was in New York.  He invited her, in the name of the Executive Committee of the Society, to come to New York, and meet with Christian women in sewing circles and private parlors, and talk to them, as she so well knew how to do, on slavery.

The door of usefulness she had been looking for so long was opened at last, but it was so unexpected, so different from anything she had yet thought of, that she was cast into a sea of trouble.  Naturally retiring and unobtrusive, she shrank from so public an engagement, and this proposal frightened her so much that she could not sleep the first night after receiving it.  She had never spoken to the smallest assembly of Friends, and even in meeting, where all were free to speak as the spirit moved them, she had never uttered a word; and yet, how could she refuse?  She delayed her answer until she could make it the subject of prayer and consult with Sarah.  Desiring to leave her sister entirely free to express her opinion, she merely wrote to her that she had received the proposition.

Sarah was beginning to feel that Angelina was growing beyond her, and, may be, above her.  She did not offer a word of advice, but most tenderly expressed her entire willingness to give up her “precious child,” to go anywhere, and do anything she felt was right.  And in a letter to a friend, alluding to this, she says:—­

“My beloved sister does indeed need the prayers of all who love her.  Oh! may He who laid down his life for us guide her footsteps and keep her in the hollow of His holy hand.  Perhaps the Lord may be pleased to cast our lot somewhere together.  If so, I feel as if I could ask no more in this world.”