Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/176

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138
LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND

who came often for treatment, and when she saw them sitting in the front office awaiting their turn, she sometimes referred to them as "the stool-pigeons." She began in these days to sense the possibilities of the principle she taught, and to see further than a step ahead. She often told Kennedy that she would one day establish a great religion which would reverence her as its founder and source. "Richard," she would declare, looking at him intently, "you will live to hear the church-bells ring out my birthday." And on July 16, 1904, they did—her own bells, in her own church at Concord.

The feeling of at last having her foot in the stirrup seemed to crystallise and direct Mrs. Glover's ambition as adversity had never done. She had something the world had waited for, she told Kennedy, and she meant to make the world pay for it. She often declared that she had been born an unwelcome child, and that from the first every man's hand had been against her. Although she was in her fiftieth year, Mrs. Glover had not reached the maturity of her powers. During these early years in Lynn she becomes in every way a more commanding and formidable person. Since she no longer had to live by her wits, certain affectations and ingratiating mannerisms became less pronounced. The little distinction for which she had fought so tenaciously, and which she had been put at such shifts to maintain, was now respectfully admitted by all her students—and by some even reverently. She began to dress better. Her thin face filled out, her figure lost its gauntness and took on an added dignity. People who were afraid of her complained that her "hawk-eye" looked clear through them, and persons who admired her compared her eye to an eagle's.