CHAPTER II
MRS. GLOVER AS A WIDOW IN TILTON—HER INTEREST IN MESMERISM AND CLAIRVOYANCE—THE DISPOSAL OF HER SON—MARRIAGE TO DANIEL PATTERSON
Mrs. Glover had now to face a hard situation. Her brief married life had ended in adversity, and returning a widow to her father's house, she was without means of support for herself or her child, and she had neither the training nor the disposition to take up an occupation, or to make herself useful at home. Her sisters and brothers were married and gone from home, and her parents were growing old and less able to cope with her turbulent moods. Embarrassing as this position would have been to most women, Mrs. Glover did not apparently find it so. She took it for granted that she was to receive not only the sympathy of her relatives but their support and constant service, and that they should assume the care of her child. She divided her time between her father's house and that of her sister Abby, and her baby was left to her mother and sister or sent up the valley to a Mrs. Varney, whose son, John Varney, worked for the Tiltons. Frequently, too, the child stayed with Mahala Sanborn, a neighbour who had attended Mrs. Glover at his birth. But wherever he was, it was not with his mother, who had shown a curious aversion to him from the beginning. “Mary,” said her father, “acts like an
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