Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/279

Rh sister, talked over her business, and put her affairs in order, telling them where they would find all her things. When she had given all her directions, she asked them if there were anything about which they wished to question her. When they replied in the negative, she said, "Good-bye, Mother. Good bye, Sister," and smoothing once again that never-wrinkled, turned-back sheet, she folded her hands and almost instantly died.

In 1878, when Miss Brown believed that Mr. Spofford had bewitched her, she was a patient of Miss Dorcas Rawson. Miss Rawson and her sister, Mrs. Rice, it will be remembered, were among Mrs. Eddy's first students in Lynn. They were daughters of a large family in Maine, and when they were very young girls came to Lynn to make their way in the shoe shops. Miranda soon married Mr. Rice and left the factory. After the two sisters had studied with Mrs. Eddy, Dorcas also left the factory and became a practising healer. She was as ardent in her new faith as she had been before in Methodism. While a Methodist she had been one of a number who "professed holiness," that is, who felt that in their daily walk they were so near to God that His presence protected them from even the temptation to sin. Miss Rawson was a thoroughly good and unselfish woman, and so earnest and forceful that perhaps in a later day she would have been called "strong-minded." However devoted in service, such a firm and independent nature would almost inevitably clash with Mrs. Eddy's at times, and Miss Rawson had more than one painful difference with her teacher. But it was hard for Miss Rawson to give up a friend, harder than to bear with Mrs. Eddy's unreasonableness. After