Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/156

120 at any cost. Even while she was dependent upon precarious hospitality, Mrs. Glover managed to invest her person and her doings with a certain form and ceremony which was not without its effect. She spent much time in her room; was not always accessible; had her meals prepared at special hours; made calls and received visitors with a certain stress of graciousness and condescension. She had the faculty of giving her every action and word the tone of importance. She was now a woman of forty-seven; her wardrobe was shabby and scant; she still rouged her cheeks; the brown hue of her hair was crudely artificial; her watch and chain and several gold trinkets were, with the Quimby manuscripts, her only treasures. Certainly, neither village gossips nor rustic humourists had spared her. But the stage did not exist that was so mean and poor, nor the audience so brutal and unsympathetic, that Mrs. Glover could not, unabashed, play out her part.