Sarah Childress, of Tennessee, when nineteen years old married James Knox Polk, a member of the Legislature of that State. The next year he was elected to Congress, continuing fourteen sessions in Washington, and Mrs. Polk held a high social position there owing to her courteous manners, dignity and many accomplishments. When she returned to Washington as the wife of the President, having no children, she devoted herself exclusively to her duties in that position. At her weekly receptions the custom of serving refreshments to guests was abolished. As she was a strict Presbyterian, dancing also was forbidden; nevertheless, she was very popular. She was a handsome woman of the Spanish type, dressed with refined and elegant taste, and was noted as a conversationalist, beside realizing keenly the obligations of her station. She survived her husband over forty years, living at “Polk Place,” Nashville, the home they had hoped to share in old age. [Illustration: _SARAH CHILDRESS POLK_ _Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._] Margaret Smith Taylor TWELFTH PRESIDING LADY 1849-1850 Margaret Smith, wife of General Zachary Taylor, was the daughter of a Maryland planter. Domestic in taste and devoted to her husband, she lived much in garrisons and afield, making a home anywhere. She was without social ambition, and therefore had no desire to preside at the White House, preferring her quiet home at Baton Rouge, where she and her youngest daughter, “Miss Betty,” were widely known and liked, and where she permanently established an Episcopal church. When her husband was elected President, she relinquished the duties of hostess to Mrs. Bliss (Miss Betty), then but twenty-two years of age, whose grace of manner and youthful charms relieved the formality of Mrs. Polk’s previous reign. Their residence at the White House was suddenly terminated by the President’s death, sixteen months after his inauguration. Mrs. Taylor died two years later, at the home of her only son in Louisiana. [Illustration: _MARGARET SMITH TAYLOR_ _Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._] Abigail Fillmore THIRTEENTH PRESIDING LADY 1850-1853