The last of August, 1836, the sisters were once more together, Sarah having accepted Mrs. Parker’s invitation to come to Shrewsbury.  The question of future arrangements was now discussed.  Angelina felt a strong inclination to go to New England, and undertake there the same work which the committee in New York wished her to perform, and she even wrote to Mr. Wright that she expected to do so.  Feeling also that Friends had the first right to her time and labors, and that, if permitted, she would prefer to work within the Society, she wrote to her old acquaintances, E. and L. Capron, the cotton manufacturers of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, to consult them on the subject.  She mentions this in a letter to her friend, Jane Smith, saying:—­

“My present feelings lead me to labor with Friends on the manufacture and use of the products of slave-labor.  They excuse themselves from doing anything, because they say they cannot mingle in the general excitement, and so on.  Now, here is a field of labor in which they need have nothing to do with other societies, and yet will be striking a heavy blow at slavery.  These topics the Anti-Slavery Society has never acted upon as a body, and therefore no agent of theirs could consistently labor on them.  I stated to E. and L. Capron just how I felt, and asked whether I could be of any use among them, whether they were prepared to have the morality of these things discussed on Christian principles.  I have no doubt my Philadelphia friends will oppose my going there, but, Jane, I have realized very sensibly of late that I belong not to them, but to Christ Jesus, and that I must follow the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth....  I feel as if I was about to sacrifice every friend I thought I had, but I still believe with T.D.  Weld, that this is ‘a cause worth dying for.’”

This is the first mention we find of her future husband, whom she had not yet seen, but whose eloquent addresses she had read, and whose ill-treatment by Western mobs had more than once called forth the expression of her indignation.

The senior member of the firm to which she had written answered her letter in person, and, she says, utterly discouraged her.  He said that if she should go into New England with the avowed intention of laboring among Friends on the subject of slavery in any way, her path would be completely closed, and she would find herself entirely helpless.  He even went so far as to say that he believed there were Friends who would destroy her character if she attempted anything of the kind.  He proposed that she should go to his house for the winter, and employ her time in writing for the Anti-Slavery Society, and doing anything else she could incidentally.  But this plan did not suit her.  She felt it right to offer her services to Friends first, and was glad she had done so; but if they would not accept them she must take them elsewhere.  Besides, when she communicated her plan to Catherine Morris, Catherine objected to it very decidedly, and said she could not go without a certificate and a companion, and these she knew Friends would not grant her.