But there was one element in the North to whom Rhoda Ware’s share in these events was not a matter of indifference. In the eyes of the abolitionists she was a martyr to the cause to which they were zealously devoted and during the month in which she served out her sentence letters poured in upon her containing money for the payment of her fine and warm words of praise. The Female Anti-Slavery Society of Hillside sent her the whole of their small store, saying, “we shall be proud to share even so little in the martyrdom of our beloved president.” Rhoda wept over it, knowing well at what cost of personal sacrifice the little hoard had been gathered. But she knew, too, that to beg them to take back their offering would be to stab their very hearts. Other anti-slavery societies in Ohio and elsewhere sent contributions. There were checks from rich men in New York, New England and Pennsylvania, whose purses were always open for the anti-slavery cause and whose custom it was to give brotherly encouragement to Underground operators who fell into the toils of the Fugitive Slave Act by helping to pay their fines. The amount in which Rhoda had been mulcted was entirely paid, as was the assessment in many another case, by these enthusiastic co-workers. Most precious to her, however, were the letters which came from abolitionists all over the country with their words of praise, sympathy, encouragement and hope. Many of them were from men and women whose names will be found in the pages of American history as long as the conflict over slavery holds a place therein. Long afterward, when many years of peace had enabled all the people of the land to look back with calm philosophy upon those heated years of contention, and the impartial muse of history had given to the Underground Railroad a high place among the causes which brought on the Civil War and abolished servitude, Rhoda Ware held these letters among her most prized mementos of those stirring days of which she was a part. CHAPTER XXIV The lilac bushes were again in bud and Rhoda Ware was looking at them, pulling down here and there a tall one to see if it was not farther advanced than the rest, and reckoning how soon they would burst into flower, when she saw a tall, erect old man enter the gate. He came up the walk with a peculiar directness of manner, as of one accustomed to go forward with eyes and will upon a single aim. As he approached and asked for Dr. Ware, Rhoda saw in his face something of that same quality of underlying sternness, a sternness expressive rather of uncompromising moral sense than of severity of feeling or of judgment, that marked her father’s countenance. His silver-white beard, long and full, lent to this austereness a patriarchal dignity.