As soon as possible, I returned to the jail to bid them all good-bye
and thank them for their good treatment of me while under their care.
They rejoiced with me in my good fortune and wished me much success
and happiness in years to come.
I was much concerned at my mother's prolonged absence, and was deeply
anxious to meet her and sob out my joy on her faithful bosom. Surely
it was the hands of God which prevented mother's presence at the
trial, for broken down with anxiety and loss of sleep on my account,
the revulsion of feeling would have been greater than her over-wrought
heart could have sustained.
As soon as she heard of the result, she hurried to meet me, and hand
in hand we gazed into each other's eyes and saw the light of freedom
there, and we felt in our hearts that we could with one accord cry
out: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will towards
men."
Dear, dear mother! how solemnly I invoke your spirit as I review these
trying scenes of my girlhood, so long agone! Your patient face and
neatly-dressed figure stands ever in the foreground of that checkered
time; a figure showing naught to an on-looker but the common place
virtues of an honest woman! Never would an ordinary observer connect
those virtues with aught of heroism or greatness, but to me they are
as bright rays as ever emanated from the lives of the great ones of
earth, which are portrayed on historic pages--to me, the qualities of
her true, steadfast heart and noble soul become "a constellation, and
is tracked in Heaven straightway.
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