Helen Gould

Had her picture taken unawares recently. Although her name is much before the public, she is personally so retiring that she will not pose before the camera. For that reason the photograph is the better likeness of her showing her with natural attitude and expression.

Miss Gould is a serious woman. She looks upon life as a responsibility—a responsibility for others as well as for herself.

She is deeply religious, and in a simple sense, for her Presbyterianism is of the kind that accepts the Bible literally. With this religion, Miss Gould is not gay, though she is kind.

A house party at Lyndhurst, her country place on the Hudson, is not a frivolous affair. There are often some visiting children, who learn verses from the Bible for prizes. The busy secretaries and young women, cousins of Miss Gould, who live with her, may be arranging for an entertainment at a church sewing circle. Miss Gould has sometimes two and three church affairs a week.

Miss Gould does not enjoy the so-called society function and she has a horror of "smart" society. Her house on Fifth Avenue in New York is closed much of the time, and when she is there she lives quietly, with only her intimate friends and her family visiting her. She prizes her father's wonderful pictures as she does everything that was his, but she has no enthusiasm for the collection and has never added to it.

She has a Crippled Children's Home at Tarrytown, near Lyndhurst, and pays it frequent visits during the summer.

She is an advocate of world peace, and has been a regular attendant at Peace Conferences. At the outbreak of the Spanish American war she gave the United States Government $100,000 for hospital service.

The lot of an heiress to millions, charming as it may seem to the average girl, has its drawbacks. Miss Gould is overwhelmed with begging letters, and for many years she has had to reckon with a man who was obsessed with the idea that he should marry her.