# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 108

When we reached New York (September, 1923) I suggested that we go to 72nd Street where I had been living when my sister came with the baby to New York to see her husband off for Europe. The matter of finances had to be faced. I had scarcely any money left, and Scott and Elizabeth almost as little. But there was enough to last until we secured ​positions. My sister Janet, six years my junior, was going to secure a secretarial position also. The four of them—Scott, Elizabeth, Janet and Elizabeth Ann—had an apartment downstairs and I secured my old room on the top floor.
It was Elizabeth's early suggestion that I go immediately to Daisy Harding and reveal the truth to her. I had received no word from anyone about funds having been provided by Mr. Harding and I could not understand this. He had always been so generous, and it was upon the very last visit to him in the White House that he had declared again his full intention to care for both Elizabeth Ann and me all the rest of our lives. So I concluded that whoever had been entrusted with money for the baby and me would probably wait until a suitable time had elapsed before making this bequest known to me. My sister and her husband were skeptical, but then I could condone their attitude because I knew that no one had ever known Mr. Harding as I had known him, and no one could ever convince me that he would neglect his sweetheart and his child. Had he not, long before we had dreamed of Elizabeth Ann's coming, been tempted upon two or more occasions to reveal to one or more of his friends his relations with me, when he had been seized with acute indigestion and had thought he was going to pass on? Then there was no reason, as I had told him at the time he repeated these things to me, for him to settle any money upon me. He had not harmed me, but blessed me with his love, and I could see no reason why he should even think of arranging for my comfort. But after Elizabeth Ann was born I was far more dependent. My situation was increasingly complicated. And now for me to think that Warren Harding had not made ample provision for his child, and her mother as well, would be for me to impute cowardice and injustice to one whom I knew always bravely met life-issues. No, this was a feeling I could not in my most desperate need ever share, for I knew well the man I loved and I knew his love for me.
Captain Neilsen came around to see us after we had become comparatively settled. Helen Anderson also came and brought ​on one occasion some lovely preserves. But for the most part I neither looked up my old friends nor cared to have them look me up. The captain was different. He was kindly, he was understanding, and he was not fastidious in any sense of the word. Therefore he came several times to call upon me there in my sister's New York apartment before he sailed for Germany in October. I explained to him that a sudden financial embarrassment had arisen with me as well as with my sister's family, and that I would be unable to then pay him the $450 I owed him. He waved away even the idea of repayment, though I emphasized the fact that I was sure very soon I would have the funds for him. I told these facts to my sister and her husband and they thought he was a wonderfully fine man. "You'll go a long way before you ever find a man as kind-hearted as Captain Neilsen," they told me. And I agreed that he was indeed all that.
In spite of our almost destitute circumstances we were, at least, together, and Elizabeth Ann slept with me nearly every night. But it broke my heart to look at the little darling and realize what everything meant.
At that time secretarial positions were scarce, and it was very difficult for Janet and me to get located, especially when I declined to work for less than $35 a week. Janet finally accepted a position for a lesser salary, but it took me several weeks to find a place.