Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/436

382 him she might hope for the unquestioning obedience and perpetual adoration she was always seeking. She loved to amaze and astonish; when her students ceased to "wonder," she was usually through with them. Each of her favourites gave her, as it were, a new lease of life; with each one her interest in everything quickened. The great outside audience meant very little as compared with the pliant neophyte beside her chair or across the table from her. It was when Mrs. Eddy was weaving her spell about a new favourite that she was at her best, and it was then that she most believed in herself. But she could never stop with enchanting, merely. She must altogether absorb the new candidate; he must have nothing left in him which was not from her. If she came upon one insoluble atom hidden away anywhere in the marrow of his bones, she experienced a revulsion and flung him contemptuously aside.

Dr. Foster had been in the house but a little while when Mrs. Eddy told him she foresaw that the relation between them must be a very close one. This announcement somewhat disconcerted him, until she explained that it was her intention to adopt him as her son. In her petition to the Court, Mrs. Eddy stated that "said Foster is now associated with your petitioner in business, home life, and life work, and she needs such interested care and relationship." On the 5th of November, 1888, accordingly, Dr. Foster's legal name became Ebenezer J. Foster Eddy.

The new son was a small man with an affectionate disposition, gentle, affable manners, and very small, well-kept hands. He had certain qualities which Mrs. Eddy had always found desirable in those who were closely associated with her. He never