Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/175

Rh standing, and the fact that his office was in the same building recommended the young practitioner, while she herself was glad to say a good word for him whenever she could. It became a common thing for the friends of discouraged invalids to say: "Go to Dr. Kennedy. He can't hurt you, even if he doesn't help you." His offices were sometimes so crowded that he would have to ask his patients to await their turn below in Miss Magoun's parlour. The children in the school were fond of him, and he often found time to run downstairs about dismissal hour and help Miss Magoun and her assistant get the younger pupils into their wraps and overshoes. He knew them all by name, and sometimes joined in their games.

Mrs. Glover herself, during these first months, remained much in the background, a solitary and somewhat sombre figure, applying herself to her work with ever-increasing seriousness. For the first time she was free from pecuniary embarrassments, and she concentrated her energies upon her teaching, and writing with a determination which she had never before shown. She seldom went out of the house, was usually silent at Miss Magoun's dinner-table, and the school children, when they met her in the hall, hurried curiously past the grave, abstracted woman, who never spoke to them or noticed them. Far from relaxing in an atmosphere of comparative prosperity, she was impatient of the easy-going friendliness of the people about her. She was contemptuous of the active part which Kennedy took in the social life around him, and resented his having much to do with Miss Magoun's young friends. She continually urged him to put aside every other interest and concentrate himself wholly upon Science. She was annoyed at the women patients