look of relief that must have passed across my face. I said I really couldn't see what anyone could do to "double-cross" a President, but I did wish he would be watchful. It may have been this time that he told me that he was surrounded by friends, and knowing what a true and loyal friend Warren Harding was it seemed reasonable to believe that he would inspire in others equally loyal friendship toward himself.
I had with me some character sketches which I had written in my course at Columbia University, one of them about his very own self, and which my professor had read aloud to our class. I put the rather bulky package of manuscript in his hands with a request that he read the contents when he found time. "Found time!" he agreed was a good expression. "Gee, Nan, they watch every move I make. Why, I even have to steal the time I take to write to you." I said I thought it was perfectly horrible, and I wished to goodness he were out of it. And a full year had not yet elapsed since he went into office! The months seemed fettered with some ball and chain, so slow they moved.
Of course we talked of Elizabeth Ann and I told him that I thought I had made a terrible mistake in allowing our baby girl to be adopted, even as much as I adored Elizabeth my sister. And again he told me how he would love, if he were free to do it, to take Elizabeth Ann and "make her a real Harding." And the wistfulness of his smile when he said this was precious to me.
Enroute to New York, Scott Willits, my brother-in-law, my sister Elizabeth and Elizabeth Ann, stopped in Washington. They went almost immediately to the office of Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw, youngest sister of President Harding whose husband, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been appointed by Mr. Harding as Superintendent of Prisons. Mrs. Votaw was prominent in welfare work of some kind. Mrs. Votaw, or Carrie Harding
