with the full knowledge of who she is, for it will not lessen by one jot the love which she bears to me—her mother.
"I am so glad you let E. A. go to her grandmother's . . . if she were my child I'd let stay there for the next two years. I believe he would say the same . . ." Keep her in the country, away from me, for two years! A cruel suggestion! That my sweetheart, who had been willing, yea, eager to do anything in his power to enable me to be with my baby and to have her with me, would concede that his sister's suggestion was the right thing was in my eyes only a pitiful thought to prop an argument which had been born of a frightened mind, and was in truth a mere apology for failure on the part of all the Hardings to act fairly toward Elizabeth Ann.
Miss Harding said my child should have the "quiet, fresh air and childish freedom" the country affords. This was exactly my idea, as it would be the idea of any mother, but I wanted to be with her, and this the Hardings were unwilling to make possible to me. I had therefore been obliged to let her go away from me because I myself was unable to provide those things which I knew were for her good.
Miss Harding's query in this letter as to how the money had been transferred to my sister Elizabeth was entirely superfluous in view of the fact that I had made it very plain to her and to her brother that all monies had been transferred through me, personally, from Mr. Harding to my sister and her husband. As a matter of fact, I had insisted upon this myself as my idea of added protection to Mr. Harding. I had even given his brother, Dr. Harding, the dates of certain cancelled vouchers, for which he asked during our interview. "Was the money sent through some bank in Ohio?" Miss Harding inquired in her letter. This was evidently why she had asked for Elizabeth's address—to make the inquiry direct to her. Even then there was current gossip which touched some of the government officials in high places when Mr. Harding was President. Was her query instigated by those who themselves would not ask me direct, but
