I think it was not long after this excursion that his sister Sarah came from Maryland to visit him.  She was a pleasant, sensible matron, much respected by all who knew her.  I noted down at the time several anecdotes of childhood and youth, which bubbled up in the course of conversations between her and her brother.  In her character the hereditary trait of benevolence was manifested in a form somewhat different from his.  She had no children of her own, but she brought up, on her husband’s farm, nineteen poor boys and girls, and gave most of them a trade.  Nearly all of them turned out well.

In the winters of 1842 and ’43, Friend Hopper complied with urgent invitations to visit the Anti-Slavery Fair, in Boston; and seldom has a warmer welcome been given to any man.  As soon as he appeared in Amory Hall, he was always surrounded by a circle of lively girls attracted by his frank manners, his thousand little pleasantries, and his keen enjoyment of young society.  A friend of mine used to say that when she saw them clustering round him, in furs and feathered bonnets, listening to his words so attentively, she often thought it would make as fine a picture as William Penn explaining his treaty to the Indians.

Ellis Gray Loring in a letter to me, says:  “We greatly enjoyed Friend Hopper’s visit.  You cannot conceive how everybody was delighted with him; particularly all our gay young set; James Russell Lowell, William W. Story, and the like.  The old gentleman seemed very happy; receiving from all hands evidence of the true respect in which he is held.”  Mrs. Loring, writing to his son John, says:  “We have had a most delightful visit from your father.  Our respect, wonder, and love for him increased daily.  I am sure he must have received some pleasure, he bestowed so much.  We feel his friendship to be a great acquisition.”

Samuel J. May wrote to me:  “I cannot tell you how much I was charmed by my interview with Friend Hopper.  To me, it was worth more than all the Fair beside.  Give my most affectionate respects to him.  He very kindly invited me to make his house my home when I next come to New-York; and I am impatient for the time to arrive, that I may accept his invitation.”

Edmund Quincy, writing to Friend Hopper’s daughter, Mrs. Gibbons, says:  “You cannot think how glad we were to see the dear old man.  He spent a night with me, to my great contentment, and that of my wife; and to the no small edification of our little boy, to whom breeches and buckles were a great curiosity.  My Irish gardener looked at them with reverence; having probably seen nothing so aristocratic, since he left the old country.  I love those relics of past time.  The Quakers were not so much out, when they censured their members for turning sans culottes.  Think of Isaac T. Hopper in a pair of pantaloons strapped under his feet!  There is heresy in the very idea.  But, costume apart, we were as glad to see Father Hopper, as if he had been our real father in the flesh.  I hope he had a right good time.  If he had not, I am sure it was not for want of being made much of.  I trust his visits to Boston will grow into one of our domestic institutions.”