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Ignorant of this purpose of Mr. Packard, on my return from my trial this Saturday evening previous to my acquittal on the Monday evening following, I had fortunately arrived prior to Mr. Packard, on account of the extra fleetness of Mr. Hanford's team to that of Mr. Dole's. Indeed, our merry sleigh-bells were soon lost in the distance as we flew past Mr. Dole's sleigh load including Mr. Packard, for we had an especial object in seeking an arrival before them, hoping thus to be able to remove my trunk without interference.

At about eleven o'clock at night we arrived at the door of my house, to find it unoccupied -- but locked -- both doors and windows.

"How shall we enter?" was the question to be solved.

"Shall my men force an entrance and thus expose themselves to a prosecution for larceny? or, shall I introduce them into my own house by opening the door myself with my own key?"

The latter policy prevailed, for neither Mr. Packard, nor a other person had seen fit to disturb the locality where I had chosen to place the keys two months before. Therefore, instead of directing my men, as Mr. Packard had directed his children to look where the keys were not, I simply told them to look where they were, in the "right place," for, of course, that was the only place in which to find them! And, although the snow and ice had buried them a trifle deeper than my own hands had done, under the sod beneath my window, yet, by the aid of the identical axe by which Packard had broken into my window three years and a half before, my men easily found the keys, so that we could unlock the door and enter quietly and peaceably into my own house, when I directed my men to take my trunk, already packed with my Asylum wardrobe, and remove it to their sleigh, and thus it was transported with myself to Mr. Hanford's house, where I quietly rested until Monday morning, while Mr. Packard was robbing me and my house and fleeing from justice.

Thus robbed of all my life earnings, and bereaved of my children, in addition to my three years of 'false imprisonment,' as the decision of the jury proved it to have been, I now appealed to the laws for protection, as a married woman, when, alas! I found I had no laws to appeal to!

My counsel assured me, that before the law, I was merely a "nonentity," and therefore, as I had no rights, I had no protection in the law, except in a divorce.

I replied, "Gentlemen, I cannot conscientiously get a divorce, as I am a Bible woman, and cannot claim that I have any Bible cause for a divorce. Besides, I claim the right to be a married woman, therefore I claim protection, as a married woman."

My counsel replied, "As a married woman, you have no protection in law. Your husband is the only protector you have."

"But he has become my persecutor! can't you protect me against my persecutor?"

"There is no way, but by a divorce, that we can extend to you the protection of any law to shield you from marital usurpation; for on the principle of common law, whatever is yours is his -- your property is his -- your earnings are his -- your children are his -- and you are his. Whatever you hold in common with him, in his own name, you have no more right to than any other woman, while your husband lives. But should you outlive him, you have a 'right of dower' in his real estate, which you have a right to use during your lifetime. But while he lives, you have not a right even to the hat on your head."

"But, Sir, I have bought and paid for my hat with my own money!"

"That is of no consequence. If you did not hold this money you purchased it with in your own name, as a single woman, independent of himself, you have no more legal right to use it, as your own, than any other woman."

"I had supposed that I was his partner, in law, as I am in society."

"No indeed! there is your grand mistake. There is no such thing as a partnership relation in the marriage union. The man and wife become one, but that one is the man! for the rights of the married woman are all 'suspended during coverture,' while all the rights of the married man remain established and protected by law, just as they were before marriage."

"But why do you not allow married woman a right to an existence as before, also? Can't she, as a woman, be as well protected while she is married, as he is as a man, while he is married?"

"No. For married woman is a slave! and we cannot protect slaves, except through their masters."

"Slave!" said I, "Why, I have always been an abolitionist and I never before knew that I was a slave. I supposed I was the partner and companion of my husband. I never suspected or thought I was his slave!"

"You are his companion and partner, socially; but legally, you are his slave."

"Why is this? Why don't our legal and social condition correspond more nearly?"

"Because married woman has never been legally emancipated from the slavish social position she occupied in the uncivilized state of society in the dark ages. Society then made married woman a slave to her husband, and in order to make her legal position to correspond to this her social position, the law-makers of that age inaugurated this common law as their basis of the marriage union. Thus married woman became a 'nonentity,' by a legal suspension of her rights during coverture. And a person whose rights are all suspended is a mere chattel before the law. Then this legal position corresponded with her social position. But now her social and legal position do not correspond; for civilization has elevated woman from this slavish social position, so that she is now the companion and partner of her husband. She is not now his slave socially, but legally she is still in the position of a slave.