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332 impervious to her doctrine. Destiny still parted them with an insurmountable barrier. Hungering for the plains, restless for the saddle, his leathern holster bulging beneath his coat, his hand nervously seeking his hip at the slightest altercation, what could a woman of sixty do with a man of middle age, settled in his habits? Here was no longer the problem of mother and son. Authority and obedience were as a dead letter. Time had set its seal upon him as a man and an individual.

Departing for the West, he went over the great divide in human concepts for another ten years, but in 1887 sent his mother a characteristically casual note stating that he intended coming East to pay her a visit. In a letter which Glover says he received from his mother dated October 31, 1887, she replied to her son in words pregnant of her apprehensions with regard to his character. “I must have quiet in my home,” she wrote, “and it will not be pleasant for you in Boston.” She told him that the Choates were no longer with her. “You are not what I had hoped to find you,” she continued, “and I cannot have you come. … The world, the flesh, and evil I am at war with. … Boston is the last place in the world for you or your family. When I retire into private life, then I can receive you if you are reformed, but not otherwise. I say this to you, not to any one else. I would not injure you any more than myself.”

But this letter which speaks volumes of maternal regret appears to have had no effect in deterring George Glover from seeking the mother whom he