Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/227

Rh that his stories went well in the village square, he eventually told them to newspaper correspondents and saw them printed in the metropolitan press. The apparent foundation for such slanderous gossip is that the children playing roughly in Mrs. Glover’s room tore the matting with their heavy shoes, and some dead ashes were laid on a newspaper to be removed with the rubbish. There was no thought of serious unpleasantness when Mrs. Glover left his father’s home, nor dared this son speak against his mother’s teacher so long as his mother lived.

But the scoffings of the son and the mimicry and mockery of his cousin Kate did create a discord in the home which came to wear on Mrs. Glover’s mind. She frequently overheard the wordy and worldly clamor in the rooms down-stairs. She heard the harsh laughter and mincing mimicry; she heard the passionate defense made of her by the young daughter Lucy; she heard Mrs. Wentworth sharply reprimanding her eldest son with the words, “If ever there was a saint on earth it is Mrs. Glover.” She heard the father interfere with a tolerant plea for his boy. The house was too small for her to live in unmindful of these indiscreet wranglings.

There seemed to be a hopeless division in the family over her, her personality, her teaching, her interpretation of the Bible. This division of opinion threatened to become a serious cause of difference in an otherwise united family. Mary Baker made up her mind one evening, after reading a letter from Miss Bagley, that she would return to the quiet home