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Chestnut street, an incident occurred which excited some interest in the crowd, and was noticed by the press at the time, and may perhaps be properly related here as a part of the story of my eventful life. It was my meeting Mrs. Amanda Sears, the daughter of my old mistress, Miss Lucretia Auld, the same Lucretia to whom I was indebted for so many acts of kindness when under the rough treatment of Aunt Katy, at the "old plantation home" of Col. Edward Lloyd. Mrs. Sears now resided in Baltimore, and as I saw her on the corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets, I hastily ran to her, and expressed my surprise and joy at meeting her.^{†Although the incident was reported otherwise in some newspaper accounts, Douglass apparently encountered Arianna Amanda Auld Sears} "But what brought you to Philadelphia at this time?" I asked. She replied, with animated voice and countenance, "I heard you were to be here, and I came to see you walk in this procession." The dear lady, with her two children, had been following us for hours. Here was the daughter of the owner of a slave, following with enthusiasm that slave as a free man, and listening with joy to the plaudits he received as he marched along through the crowded streets of the great city. And here I may relate another circumstance which should have found place earlier in this story, which will further explain the feeling subsisting between Mrs. Sears and myself.

Seven years prior to our meeting, as just described. I delivered a lecture in National Hall, Philadelphia,^{†The exact date of Douglass's initial reunion with Amanda Sears is uncertain but apparently took place between 1859 and 1863. His only confirmed appearance at National Hall in 1859 is that of 18 October, after which he hurriedly left the city in the wake of news about John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After his return from England he spoke at National Hall on 14 January 1862 and on 6 July 1863. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4:137.} and at its close a gentleman approached me and said, "Mr. Douglass, do you know that your once mistress has been listening to you to-night?" I replied that I did not, nor was I inclined to believe it. The fact was, that I had four or five times before had a similar statement made to me by different individuals in different states, and this made me skeptical in this instance. The next morning, however, I received a note from a Mr. Wm. Needles, very elegantly written, which stated that she who was Amanda Auld, daughter of Thomas and Lucretia Auld, and granddaughter to my old master, Capt. Aaron Anthony, was now married to Mr. John L. Sears, a coal merchant in West Philadelphia. The street and number of Mr. Sears's office was given, so that I might, by seeing him, assure myself of the facts in the case, and perhaps learn something of the relatives whom I left in slavery. This note, with the intimation given me the night before, convinced me there was something in it, and I resolved to know the truth. I had now been out of slavery twenty years, and no word had come to me from my sisters, or my brother Perry, or my grandmother. My separation had been as complete as if I had been an inhabitant of another planet. A law of Maryland at that time visited with heavy line and imprisonment any colored person who should come into the State; so I could not go to them any more than they could come to me.