Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/218

178 expecting to see Mrs. Glover walk upon the water of the river. Such incidents made this sojourn in Amesbury a mingled experience. Seeking absolute retirement, she was forced to endure a somewhat unpleasant notoriety through the volubleness of the kindly old soul with whom she made her home.

What she was writing at this time was comments on the Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual interpretation, the Science of the Bible, and laying the foundation of her future book. Of these writings she has said:

If these notes and comments, which have never been read by any one but myself, were published, they would show that after my discovery of the absolute Science of Mind-healing, like all great truths, this spiritual Science developed itself to me until “Science and Health” was written. These early comments are valuable to me as waymarks of progress, which I would not have effaced.

This quiet work and spiritual unfoldment came to an abrupt halt in this home through the return to the house of a son of her hostess. In sardonic reminiscence the son has related that in spite of his mother’s protests he dragged Mrs. Glover’s trunk out upon the front veranda, ejected her into the night and storm, and locked the door upon her. He has explained that he wished to clear his mother’s house of strangers that his vacation might be agreeable. This is a startling account of a ruffianly act which almost any man would hesitate to tell of him-