proud, for one thing, and I see no ultimate gain, for another, in accepting help from any source that is not freely and gladly given. I am confident, moreover, that Elizabeth Ann will develop enough of that charitable understanding and magnanimity which so strongly characterized her dear father, that her own high regard and love for him would in no wise be lessened by the mere fact that some of his family could not find it in their hearts to reconcile their love for him with a material manifestation thereof.
I cannot but feel that deep in Mrs. Votaw's heart she has nothing but charity for the man who, with me, has done a thing which devolves a very, very grave responsibility upon those courageous enough to recognize and assume it. I am sure that in her immediate family there was enough of intimate knowledge concerning the unhappy atmosphere in which her brother lived for so many years (and I speak only those things which have come from him who experienced them), not to begrudge him at least some of the happiness to which all men are rightly entitled. And the expression of my love for him would, in my opinion, have been insincere and incomplete in the extreme had I denied him the little of joy, respite and comfort it was in my power to give, and which, through another's unfortunate nature and unnecessary selfishness he had never received in full measure at home. I think there is no place in the Bible where such love as ours would go unsanctioned or unblessed, for it was God-given.
However, I cannot and do not expect Mr. Votaw, knowing me as slightly as he does, and loving his brother-in-law as devotedly as I am sure he does, to accept, without a sense of mingled incredulity and resentment, facts he prone would disbelieve and discredit and of which he has had no direct knowledge on which to base any belief at all. Of course, it seems a terrible shock to both of you! And it is but human nature for you to feel more or less justified in mentally refraining from attaching any sense of responsibility where you were not directly consulted or concerned. But in fairness to Elizabeth Ann, I made up my mind that there did exist a moral obligation to a brother's child and that it was doing the baby an injustice if I did not give her father's family an opportunity to help her, and in the hope of correcting an attitude of unfairness toward me, and in turn toward Elizabeth Ann, I am writing you.
Living as I have for nearly seven years with this growingly tremendous problem, and realizing, especially since two years ago August, the futility of attempting to solve it by myself to utmost satisfaction, it has transcended anything and everything else in importance in my mind and I have been exhausting every effort to the end that it be solved in the best—and that means the right—way. Very naturally, my feeling about the whole matter is that it is admittedly paramountly and imperatively my own immediate problem and one to be postponed not one minute longer if I would do for Elizabeth Ann what her father wished so earnestly to be done. To go back