Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/118

80 Mrs. Patterson arrived at the sanitarium exhausted with the journey. The driver lifted her out of the carriage rudely and set her upon her feet upon the ground. Mrs. Patterson turned and sped up the steps like a deer, collapsing in the waiting room of the hospital. The utter misery of that collapse was like death settling down upon her. Thus far she had come in her belief that God was going to help her and to help her now. But here God seemed to be forsaking her. She could only reiterate to herself in gasping weakness, “I know God can and will cure me, if only I could understand His way.” But she was in the midst of the doctors again who believed in quite different agencies. She must now submit to the water-cure, the fad of the period.

They carried her to one of the little cottages and instructed her attendant in the system of nursing prevailing at the water-cure. For several weeks the treatment was continued with little result. Mrs. Tilton’s common sense was failing its purpose once more. Then Mary Baker asserted her family spirit. She had wanted to go to Portland to see Quimby, and she determined she would go without further discussion. She wrote him in August that she would try to come to him, though she could sit up but for a few minutes at a time, and she asked him if he thought she would be able to reach him without sinking from the effects of the journey. Quimby replied so encouragingly that she completed her arrangements.

Mrs. Patterson arrived at the International Hotel, Portland, in October, 1862. Here in this