tion to date. As for the two or three others, friends of mine, they had certainly shown their friendship for me in guarding well the secret entrusted to them. I determined to make a point of this picayunish written parley either to Miss Harding or to the Votaws when I wrote to them. I felt my resentment was justly indulged. If for six and one-half years I could, with Mr. Harding, protect almost to inviolability a secret as colossal as ours, it seemed to me I deserved credit for that much at least.
"As soon as you make arrangements for E. A.'s return to New York, let me know as to schooling, etc., and I'll help you as much as I can . . . . I want to help you," Daisy Harding wrote in this letter. I knew that the school circular I had sent her which specified $165 for Elizabeth Ann's kindergarten expenses could not as yet have reached her. Miss Harding spoke of having made some investments and promised me some help on my debts as soon as she realized some profit on her investments. Her letter, signed, "Lovingly, A. H. Lewis," was, on the whole, comforting. It was good to know that at heart she took a sympathetic view of my situation. But what a bitter disappointment that the Votaws should take the opposite attitude!
Then under date of October 18th, having received Miss Harding's letter, sent the 16th, I wrote her again, sending her a carbon copy of a letter which I had written to the Votaws, having been inspired to do so by the following incident:
Upon receipt of the letter from Miss Harding which I have quoted above, I determined that I ought now to go directly to the Votaws in Washington and discuss the matter with them. After all, Mr. Votaw, whom Miss Harding had particularly cited as wishing to discredit my story, had probably got only a smattering of it from Daisy, or through his wife second-hand, and I felt a first-hand knowledge might bring him to a clearer under-
