“Affectionately yours,
“SARAH D. PORTER.”

I subjoin an extract of a letter which I received from Miss K. a few days before our marriage:—­

“Dolington, Pennsylvania
“March 21st, 1853.

“Professor Allen,—­
“Dearest and best-loved Friend:—­

“I have just received your letter of March 13th, and hasten to reply.

“You ask me if I can go with you in four weeks or thereabouts.  In reply, I say yes; gladly and joyfully will I hasten with you to a land where unmolested, we can be happy in the consciousness of the love which we cherish for each other.  While so far from you, I am sad, lonely, and unhappy; for I feel that I have no home but in the heart of him whom I love, and no country until I reach one where the cruel and crushing hand of Republican America can no longer tear me from you.

* * * * *

“Professor,—­I sometimes tremble when I think of the strong effort that would be put forth to keep me from you, should my brothers know our arrangements.  But my determination is taken and my decision fixed; and should the public or my friends ever see fit to lay their commands upon me again, they will find that although they have but a weak, defenceless woman to contend with, still, that woman is one who will never passively yield her rights. They may mob me; yea, they may kill me; but they shall never crush me.

“Heaven’s blessings upon all who sympathised with us.  I am not discouraged.  God will guide us and protect us.

                               “Ever yours,
          
                                   “MARY.”

’"Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart
Fell like bright Spring upon some herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of Custom thou did’st burst and rend in twain,
And walked as free as night the clouds among."’

Some idea of the spirit of persecution by which we were pursued may be gathered from the fact, that when the mobocrats of Fulton ascertained that Miss King and myself were having an interview in Syracuse, they threatened to come down and mob us, and were only deterred from so doing by the promise of Elder King, that he would go after his daughter if she did not return in the next train.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSION.

Reader,—­I have but a word or two more to say.

Insignificant as this marriage may seem to you, I can assure you that nothing else has ever occurred in the history of American prejudice against color, which so startled the nation from North to South and East to West.  On the announcement of the probability of the case merely, men and women were panic-stricken, deserted their principles and fled in every direction.

Indignation meetings were held in and about Fulton immediately after the mob.  The following Resolution was passed unanimously in one of them:—­