"April 29. To-day I have been to see Miss Pinckney. She is the last representative of her name, is over eighty, and still retains the animation of youth, though somewhat shaken in her physical strength by age. I found her sitting in an armchair, her feet resting upon a cushion, surrounded by some half-dozen callers.
"She rose at once when I entered, and insisted upon my occupying her seat, while she took a less comfortable one.
"The walls of the room were ornamented with portraits of Major-General
Pinckney by Stuart, Stuart's Washington, one by Morris of General Thomas
Pinckney, and a portrait of Miss Pinckney's mother.
"Miss Pinckney is a very plain woman, but much beloved for her benevolence.
"It is said that on looking over her diary which she keeps, recording the reasons for her many gifts to her friends and to her slaves, such entries as these will be found:
"'$—— to Mary, because she is married.'
"'$—— to Julia, because she has no husband.'
"Miss Pinckney showed me among her centre-table ornaments a miniature of Washington; one of her grandmother, of exceeding beauty; one of each of the Pinckneys whose portraits are on the walls.
"Charleston is full of ante-Revolution houses, and they please me. They were built when there was no hurry; they were built to last, and they have lasted, and will yet last for the children of their present possessors.
"Nothing can be happier in expression than the faces of the colored children. They have what must be the ease of the lower classes in a despotic country. The slaves have no care, no ambition; their place is a fixed one—they know it, and take all the good they can get. The children are fat, sleek, and, inheriting no nervous longings from their parents, are on a constant grin—at play with loud laughs and high leaps.