After spending the remainder of the winter in the vicinity of Far West, on the 5th of March, 1839, leaving much of our property behind, we started for Illinois. From the commencement of hostilities against us, in the State of Missouri, till our expulsion, no sympathy in our behalf was ever, to my knowledge, expressed by any of the former citizens, with one single exception, and that was so strikingly in contrast with the morbid state of feeling generally manifested that it made a deep impression on my mind, and I think it worthy of record. I will here relate the circumstance. It occurred on our outward journey. After a night of rain which turned to snow and covered the ground in the morning, we thawed our tent, which was stiffly frozen, by holding and turning it alternately before a blazing fire until it could be folded for packing; and, all things put in order, while we all shook with the cold, we started on. As the sun mounted upwards, the snow melted, and increased the depth of the mud with which the road before us had been amply stocked, and rendered travel almost impossible. The teams were puffing, and the wagons dragging so heavily that we were all on foot, tugging along as best we could, when an elderly gentleman, on horseback, overtook us, and, after riding alongside for some time, apparently absorbed in deep thought, as he (after inquiring who we were) watched the women and girls, men and boys, teams and wagons, slowly wending our way up a long hill, _en route_ from our only earthly homes, and, not knowing where we should find one, he said emphatically, "If I were in your places, I should want the Governor of the State hitched at the head of my teams." I afterwards remarked to my father that I had not heard as sensible a speech from a stranger since entering the State. I never saw that gentleman afterwards, but have from that time cherished a filial respect for him, and fancy I see his resemblance in the portrait of Sir Von Humboldt, now hanging on the wall before me. We arrived in Quincy, Ill., where many of the exiled saints had preceded us, and all were received with generous hospitality. My father moved to one of the northern counties. I stopped in Quincy, and, while there, wrote for the press, "An Appeal to the Citizens of the United States," "An Address to the Citizens of Quincy," and several other articles, for which I received some very flattering encomiums, with solicitations for effusions, which, probably, were elicited by the fact that they were from the pen of a "Mormon girl."