seen her sister, Mrs. Votaw. When Daisy Harding speaks of Elizabeth Ann, she often calls her "Bijiba," the baby's self-imposed nickname, and in her letter she used merely the initial "B" to indicate "Bijiba."
She wrote: "I feel that we have such different ideas about men and our relations to them that it is useless for me to suggest or advise." (Why, I had sought her counsel, her help!) "I want so much to see you happy and attain the desires nearest to your heart that I hesitate to say anything which might interfere with your plans. . . ." (Plans? I had no plans, as she surely must have known, except as they might develop through financial help from the Harding family.) ". . . . My heart goes out to you in any of your suffering, relative to B— (Bijiba), and you must know and feel that . . . ."
This letter astounded me. Even the concluding words of endearment, "Lots of love, Nan dear," failed to carry the usual note of sincerity. I read and reread the passages pertaining to Elizabeth Ann, trying to read into them something which was obviously not there, trying to discern an attitude of active interest instead of merely a passive inactive acceptance of a tragic situation. Could it be that she had failed to understand that my revelations to her had been for the express purpose of bringing the Harding family to a realization that there existed an obligation on their part to Elizabeth Ann, and not merely to solicit sympathy and discuss the intimate details of my relationship with her brother?
If such were the case, I would have to make plainer the import of my appeal to her, and frankly state my desire to see this wrong toward my child, and their brother's, righted. She had asked me, with kindly spirit and apparent understanding, to "leave it with her," and she had promised to confer with her sister, Mrs. Votaw, at the earliest opportunity. Was it possible that this talk between them had resulted in the apparent indifference her letter indicated? Impossible. They were Hardings!
But I had their brother's daughter's future at stake, and her
