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He expressed his high appreciation of my views and principles, and remarked:

"These have been exactly my views for a long time, and now I am happy to find one woman who is willing to endorse and defend them, and who can do so with so much ability."

The entire attention of our table guests seemed centred upon our conversation, for all appeared to be silent listeners, and none seemed to be in any haste to withdraw -- the cars giving us ample time for a full and leisurely taken meal.

I noticed one of the female waiters, a very intelligent-looking lady, seemed almost to forget her duties, so eager was she to listen to every word of our conversation.

After retiring with my husband to the sitting-room, I recollected the instructions given me to tell all where I was going had been disregarded at the table, where I ought to have replied to the gentleman's compliment, by saying:

"I am happy to have your approval, sir, for it is for avowing these views and principles that I am called insane, and am now on my way to Jacksonville, to be entered as an inmate, to suffer the penalty of indefinite imprisonment for this daring act; and this, sir, is my husband, Rev. Theophilus Packard, of Manteno, who is now attending me there."

This thought did flit across my mind at the table, but the habitual practice I had acquired of shielding, instead of exposing my husband, led me to resist this suggestion of self-defence and wise counsel. I saw now my error in yielding thus foolishly, to this feminine weakness, and I, like Peter, went out not "to weep bitterly," but to seek to make the best atonement I could for this sin.

I sought and found that listening female waiter, and asked her who that gentleman was with whom I held my conversation at the table. She told me.

"Will you please deliver this message to him? Tell him the lady with whom he conversed at the table is Mrs. Packard, and that the gentleman by her side was her husband, a minister, who is taking her to Jacksonville, to imprison her for advancing such ideas as he had so publicly endorsed and approved at the table."

The woman looked at me in amazement, and exclaimed:

"You are not going into the asylum!"

"Yes, I am. This very night I shall be a prisoner there."

"But you must not go! You shall not go! Come and consult the landlady -- she may hide you."

As she said this, she took me by the hand, and led me to an open door, where, from the threshold she introduced me to a very kind-looking lady, in these words:

"This is the lady I told you about, and her husband is taking her to the insane asylum; can't you help her?"

Looking at me for a moment in amazement, she said:

"Yes, I will. Come with me and I will hide you."

"No, my kind friend, it will be of no avail. My husband has the law on his side, and you cannot protect me."

"But I will try. You must not go into an insane asylum. Come! and I will shield you."

As she said this, she extended to me her hand, while the tears of real sympathy were coursing down her cheek. I replied:

"O! sister, I thank you for your kindness and sympathy. But don't distress yourself for me. I shall be sustained. I feel that God's providence overrules all, and I know God will take care of me and my children."

Just as I finished this sentence, Mr. Packard stood by my side, and he with a most respectful bow said:

"Wife, will you go with me to the parlor?"

I quietly took his arm and bowing to my would-be-protector, walked with him to the parlor, where I remained seated by his side until the train arrived.

On the cars I met again my valiant female defender, who informed me that her advisers had decided that there was no way to rescue me from my husband's hands; but that it was certain that a lady like myself would be retained at the asylum but a very short time, and would soon be restored to my children and liberty again.

After thanking her most cordially for her help and sympathy, we kissed and parted, never to meet again, unless in the unknown future.

Now my last hope died within me, and as the gloomy walls of my prison could be but indistinctly defined by the gray twilight of a summer evening, I held on to my husband's arm, as he guided my footsteps up the massive stone steps, into my dreary prison, where by gas-light he introduced me to Dr. Tenny, the Assistant Superintendent, to be conducted by him to my lonely, solitary cell.

CHAPTER V.
My Reception.

Yes, here within these prison walls, my husband and I parted, as companions, forever. He was escorted to the "guest chamber," while I, his constant companion for twenty-one years, was entrusted to the hands of my prison keeper to be led by him to find my bed and lodging, he knew not where, and to be subject to insults, he knew not what.

While he was resting on his wide, capacious, soft, luxurious bed, in the stately airy apartment of the Asylum guests, he did not know that the only place of repose provided for his weary wife was a hard narrow settee, with no soft pillows to rest her weary head upon.