less remarkable for the traits which would naturally be expected from such ancestry, while in several of them the old Huguenot-Puritan infusion colored every mental and moral quality.  This was especially notable in Sarah Moore Grimke, the sixth child, who even in her childhood continually surprised her family by her independence, her sturdy love of truth, and her clear sense of justice.  Her conscientiousness was such that she never sought to conceal or even excuse anything wrong she did, but accepted submissively whatever punishment or reprimand was inflicted upon her.

Between Sarah and her brother Thomas, six years her senior, an early friendship was formed, which was ever a source of gratification to both, and which continued without a break until his death.  To the influence of his high, strong nature she attributed to a great extent her early tendency to think and reason upon subjects much beyond her age.  Until she was twelve years old, a great deal of her time was passed in study with this brother, her bright, active mind eagerly reaching after the kind of knowledge which in those days was considered food too strong for the intellect of a girl.  She begged hard to be permitted to study Latin, and began to do so in private, but her parents, and even her brother, discouraged this, and she reluctantly gave it up.

Judge Grimke’s position, character, and wealth placed his family among the leaders of the very exclusive society of Charleston.  His children were accustomed to luxury and display, to the service of slaves, and to the indulgence of every selfish whim, although the father’s practical common sense led him to protest against the habits to which such indulgences naturally led.  He was necessarily much from home, but, when leisure permitted, his great pleasure was teaching his children and discussing various topics with them.  To Sarah he paid particular attention, her superior mental qualities exciting his admiration and pride.  He is said to have frequently declared that if she had been of the other sex she would have made the greatest jurist in the land.

In his own habits, Judge Grimke was prudent and singularly economical, and, in spite of discouraging surroundings, endeavored to instil lessons of simplicity into his children.  An extract from one of Sarah’s letters will illustrate this.  Referring in 1863 to her early life, she thus writes to a friend:—­

“Father was pre-eminently a man of common sense, and economy was one of his darling virtues.  I suppose I inherited some of the latter quality, for from early life I have been renowned for gathering up the fragments that nothing be lost, so that it was quite a common saying in the family:  ‘Oh, give it to Sally; she’ll find use for it,’ when anything was to be thrown away.  Only once within my memory did I depart from this law of my nature.  I went to our country residence to pass the summer with father.  He had deposited a number of useful odds and ends in a drawer.  Now little