● ● ●  then is wise, but you!” (April 24). Again: “I am up and about today, ie, by the help of the Lord! (Quimby).”¹⁴³ She even experienced the phenomenon so familiar to many of his patients: his phantom form suddenly appeared in the room one day, complete in hat and dress coat, at a time when he was directing his thought to her from Portland.

By the end of her stay in Warren Mrs. Patterson was in worse health, lower spirits, and a greater state of dependence on Quimby than when she arrived—although she had gained some valuable experience while there and had felt at least one small breakthrough of spiritual power. Miss Jarvis fell ill with divers complaints every time her guest spoke of leaving, but eventually the latter felt she must go. At the urgent plea of her erstwhile Portland companion, Sarah Crosby, she had planned to move on to Mrs. Crosby’s home at Albion, Maine, but her intentions were changed by an unexpected development.

The chronically restless Patterson had settled down to work. For a brief period the preceding year he had practiced dentistry in Lynn, Massachusetts. Now he returned there and opened an office in the Spinney Building, advertising in the Lynn papers regularly for the next six months. Mrs. Patterson quickly joined him there, but she was not to find the home she had hoped for.

In July of 1864 she wrote Quimby that her husband was suffering from erysipelas, and added, “He only laughs at me when I talk the truth to him.”¹⁴⁴ More disturbing was the fact that his tendency to flirt with women patients had increased and his whole nature coarsened. It was probably her discovery of the first of several instances of his unfaithfulness at that time that drove Mrs. Patterson later in the summer to go to Mrs. Crosby’s at Albion and remain there several months, or it may simply have been that Patterson was unable to provide for her.¹⁴⁵

Sarah Crosby was a vivid, decided, mentally alert but emotionally unstable young widow who had been greatly attracted to Mrs. Patterson  ● ● ●