Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/54

24 of conscience, and presently she herself became the object of such solicitation.

Among the visitors that came to their home was Governor Benjamin Pierce. He had served through the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and attained the rank of Major-General. He was twice governor of New Hampshire. Mark Baker was chaplain of the state militia, and a figure of some consequence in politics. Their politics were congenial, both being ardent Democrats and advocates of states rights. The old general sometimes brought with him on his drives to Bow his granddaughter, Fanny McNeil, who was related to the Bakers through her father, and while Mark Baker and the governor talked politics, the women discussed more congenial topics.

Mary liked best to listen to the weightier conversation, especially when it touched the welfare of some one dear to her heart. Once she heard the governor laughing merrily with her father over the way Mark Baker had got the best of his son, Franklin, in a lawsuit involving the towns of Loudon and Bow over a question of pauperism.

“You are not a lawyer, and yet my son says you beat him with your arguments,” said the governor.

“He bore his defeat in good spirit and offered me his congratulations,” replied her father. “He is a magnetic young man destined for great things. It is gratifying in these days of general bad manners to have an opponent of such courtesy and good-will. He swept me a bow like a soldier saluting his