The presence of the gentler sex was not wanting to lend grace and picturesqueness to the occasion.

The beautiful and benignant countenance of Lucretia Mott shed over the proceedings the soft radiance of a pure and regnant womanhood; while the handful of colored delegates with the elegant figure of Robert Purvis at their head, added pathos and picturesqueness to the _personnel_ of the convention.

Neither was the element of danger wanting to complete the historic scene.

Its presence was grimly manifest in the official intimation that evening meetings of the convention could not be protected, by the demonstrations of popular ill-will which the delegates encountered on the streets, by the detachment of constabulary guarding the entrance to Adelphi Hall, and by the thrillingly significant precaution observed by the delegates of sitting with locked doors.

Over the assembly it impended cruel and menacing like fate.