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Part Taken by Women in American History


man of "charming temper, gay and courteous manners, well looking, well educated and of high religious principles," and when this gentleman offered himself to Miss Lucas the joys of a single life seemed to lose their charm for her, and she smilingly agreed to become Mrs. Pinckney the second. Accordingly on a warm, sunshiny day in May, of the year 1744, she was married to Mr. Pinckney, "with the approbation of all my friends," as she proudly declared.

The new life brought new responsibilities, for Colonel Pinckney, or Chief Justice Pinckney, as he came to be, occupied a high position in the Colony, and his wife's social duties were not slight. On many nights the Pinckney mansion was brilliantly lighted, and the halls and drawing-rooms crowded with gentlemen in satin coats and knee-breeches, and ladies in rustling brocaded growns. But there were other times when the house was quiet except for the patter of children's feet upon the stairways, and the echo of children's voices through the halls. There were three children — two boys and their pretty sister, Harriott, who resembled her mother, it is said, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a touch of her mother's spirit and energy.

Then there came a day when Mrs. Pinckney no longer gave her parties to the people of Carolina, for one March morning, in the year 1753, Chief Justice Pinckney, the new Commissioner of the Colony, and his family sailed away and arrived in England with the springtime. Five years the Pinckneys remained in England, living sometimes in London, sometimes in Richmond, sometimes in Surrey, the Garden County of England, with sometimes an occasional season at Bath. The Pinckneys certainly found favor everywhere; even Royalty opened its doors to them, and they were entertained by the widowed Princess of Wales and her nine little princes and princesses. Among them was the future George III, who, of course, could not know