After the peace of 1815, Girard began to consider what he should do with his millions after his death. He was then sixty-five, but he expected and meant to live to a good age. "The Russians," he would say, when he was mixing his _olla podrida_ of a Russian salad, "understand best how to eat and drink; and I am going to see how long, by following their customs, I can live." He kept an excellent table; but he became abstemious as he grew older, and lived chiefly on his salad and his good claret. En-joying perfect health, it was not until about the year 1828, when he was seventy-eight years of age, that he entered upon the serious consideration of a plan for the final disposal of his immense estate. Upon one point his mind had been long made up. "No man," said he, "shall be a gentleman on _my_ money." He often, said that, even if he had had a son, he should have been brought up to labor, and should not, by a great legacy, be exempted from the necessity of labor. "If I should leave him twenty thousand dollars," he said, "he would be lazy or turn gambler." Very likely. The son of a man like Girard, who was virtuous without being able to make virtue engaging, whose mind was strong but rigid and ill-furnished, commanding but uninstructive, is likely to have a barren mind and rampant desires, the twin causes of debauchery. His decided inclination was to leave the bulk of his property for the endowment of an institution of some kind for the benefit of Philadelphia. The only question was, what kind of institution it should be. William J. Duane[1] was his legal adviser then,--that honest and intrepid William J. Duane who, a few years later, stood calmly his ground on the question of the removal of the deposits against the infuriate Jackson, the Kitchen Cabinet, and the Democratic party. Girard felt all the worth of this able and honorable lawyer. With him alone he conversed upon the projected institution; and Mr. Duane, without revealing his purpose, made inquiries among his travelled friends respecting the endowed establishments of foreign countries. For several months before sitting clown to prepare the will, they never met without conversing upon this topic, which was also the chief subject of discourse between them on Sunday afternoons, when Mr. Duane invariably dined at Mr. Girard's country-house. A home for the education of orphans was at length decided upon, and then the will was drawn. For three weeks the lawyer and his client were closeted, toiling at the multifarious details of that curious document.