Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/249

Rh but she remained in her rooms at South Common and Shepard streets for several months. She had with her a great deal at this time a little girl named Susie Felt, a child of twelve. Mrs. Glover took her meals at the child’s home and the little maid was so attached to her that she spent as much time with her as she was permitted. The child found this woman, whom her elders sometimes thought distant and somber, to be lovely, gracious, and sweet. Like Lucy Wentworth she was devoted to her. In later years she cherished a ring, a book, and a picture as mementos of those happy hours when she had the companionship of this great soul, relaxed from the toil of the day, when she would tell her the most wondrous things her ears had ever heard. Such hours were hers in the twilight alone with Mary Baker when the divine overflow suffused sweet dew that could not harm the tender violets of a child’s unfolding thoughts.

But the dove-like cooing of a little child’s questions or the harmonious enfolding of the diapason of the sea, when she listened to its voice, crouched alone on the brown rocks, were not all that reached her. The change and fluidity of life was in the waves, in the flight of the gulls, and in the drifting ships. Returning to the city from what was in those days a rough unwalled beach, she would see the lights of the Lynn factories betokening the passionate struggle of human endeavor. Had she stood erect on those rocks by the sea, erect in spirit while her body crouched for safety against its boulders, had she felt her ego slip away from her