“to know her is a liberal education.”
“i have no liking for large boarding-schools. my ideal of education is large, well-conducted day schools, with all the life and discipline that numbers alone can give; not to speak of the greater cheapness and efficiency of the teaching. our young women are narrowed sadly by the want of sympathy, large experience, and right self-estimation which only mixing with numbers gives. but no large dormitories nor dining-rooms. let the education be as broad and vivacious as may be, and to a certain extent, public; at all events, public-spirited. but, if boarders must attend, let them live in families, under proper regulations, of course, and attend as day scholars. large boarding-schools give a sort of hardness, which i, for one, greatly dislike. they destroy the home-feelings, but i need not dwell on these points; my feelings are most in favour of day schools and good homes.
“we have two boarding-houses. one, my own, is of very recent establishment—the girls go to and from school with me or an assistant-governess. their education is just the same as that of all the day pupils.
“it is right, however, to say that this plan of letting the mistress receive boarders is not allowed at the cheltenham ladies’ college, a large and successful institution, the only (almost) efficient proprietary girls’ school in this country. i can see possible evils, but as i have only just begun, am not fully aware of them yet. i should not recommend, i think, the mistress of a great day school being allowed to begin with a boarding-house. her strength and whole working time ought to go to the school.”
182so wrote miss buss in 1868. she had taken myra lodge because she could not otherwise have carried out her great scheme. she afterwards came to see more clearly still that the head of a great school ought to have her time at home free from all claims. had she been able to act on this from the first, her own life might have been prolonged. but once having taken up the life at myra she could never bring herself to let the girls go. even when, at last, she handed the boarding-house over to miss edwards, she moved to the house adjoining, and had a door left so that she could have girls to see her or go to see them. she said: “i do not think i could now be quite happy without girls round me.”
in accordance with her own theories, she tried to make myra lodge as home-like as possible. and the welfare of her girls—physical, mental, and spiritual—was her first care. to hygiene she had paid special attention, and her arrangements for ventilation, bathing, and food, left nothing to be desired. she always laid great stress on the need of sufficient food, varied in every possible way; and every one within her range must have heard her expatiate on the folly, or wickedness, for she gave it the harder term, which induces so many young women to do fatal injury to their health by insufficient and unsuitable food. of the laziness and indifference which makes so many of them content with odd cups of tea, in place of regular and proper meals, she could not speak too strongly. the myra girls were fed well, and with sufficient luxuries to make “home hampers” unnecessary.
on all sides we hear of the special care exercised in the matter of proper food during examinations, or in any time of extra strain. if it was known that the interval during an examination was too brief to allow 183of a full meal, hot soup, or hot milk, with bread and butter, or scone, would be ready at the right time.
here is a word to the point from miss buss, to whom i had mentioned some child’s complaint against a teacher—
“if there is anything wrong, i will see to it, but, meantime, i cannot but think there is as much real foundation for this charge against miss s. as there is in the one against me, which has taken much of my time this week to trace out, viz. that a girl now in school, was removed from my house, and placed under medical treatment, because of the insufficiency of food.
“it is quite impossible to trust in children’s judgments until all sides of the question are looked into. their views are as immature as their bodies.
“another child speaks in the same way of another teacher, and i am constantly having to bring in floods of light on a girl.”
suitable clothing was also a matter of careful consideration. miss buss would have liked a school-uniform, which she would have made graceful as well as rational; but, except in the gymnasium, she never attained this desire, and had to content herself with at school advising, and at myra compelling, the most needful reforms. she waged war against unsuitable ornamentation, lace and jewellery in the morning being always attacked.
she would, if possible, have given each girl a separate room, well supplied with the “place for everything,” in which everything would be expected to be in its place. failing this, she so divided the rooms by curtains that each inmate secured one portion that was specially her own.
at one time it was rather a fashion to talk of the “over-work” at miss buss’ schools. doubtless there were cases of girls too delicate for the life of a public school, who ought to have been kept at home; and there were also cases—very numerous—in which girls 184who were expected to do school-work and at the same time meet every home claim, as well as enjoy social distractions and dissipations, certainly did suffer. but at myra lodge, where life was duly regulated, and the time for study fixed to suit each girl, no one suffered who was at all fit to be away from her mother’s care, whilst many were very markedly improved in health during their stay there.
having myself suffered, for life, from the ignorance of the laws of health common to even the most intellectually advanced teachers of my youth, i was interested in this question, and often talked it over with miss buss. looking back on my own experience, and contrasting it with what i knew of the arrangements at myra, i could never bring myself to believe in the sufferings of girls enjoying the benefit of miss buss’ thorough knowledge of hygiene.
she fully endorsed the opinion expressed by miss beale, in an able paper read before the social science congress, in 1874, where she says—
“i remember the outcry raised when it was proposed to open the local examinations to girls. the deed was done, and none of the evils predicted have fallen on us. i frequently challenge our visitors to find a delicate-looking girl among our students. i do not say we have none, but there are so few that it is not easy to find them. i kept, one year, a record of all the causes of absence, and found that in the higher classes pupils were absent from illness on an average about three days in a year, in the lower from five to six, and in the lowest rather more.”
and from america comes the satisfactory report of “headaches diminishing and hysteria disappearing under the strengthening influences on body and mind of this higher education.”
there is no doubt that the pupils of the north london collegiate schools had enough to do. but i 185know of at least two cases where the complaint was quite the other way. miss buss says in one note—
“fancy mr. ——! he also wrote last year objecting to his daughter’s home-work being limited. i know that most of the myra girls finish at seven o’clock, do no lessons before nine in the morning, do none at all on friday evening, and always put every bit of school-work by on saturday at twelve. this leaves many an hour free. but parents are the weakest of mortals. unmarried ‘arnies’ have will, and carry out what they know to be right!”
in another case a pupil was withdrawn from myra lodge because she was not allowed to work beyond the allotted time. miss buss writes in reference to this—
“the child thinks she will be allowed, i suppose, to study whatever hours she likes, if she goes elsewhere. i will not allow more than a certain amount. what’s not done then, must be left undone. the consequence is, mental as well as bodily activity, in time.”
later, she again refers to the same subject: “patty watson has left me. it is a good lesson of failure, and helps, let us hope, to repress that ‘bladder of elation’ of which you speak.” and, once again, apropos to some other difficulty: “the enclosed note is very satisfactory. j—— d—— was not allowed to go her own way, like patty, who, by the way, is a clever girl, conscientious and industrious.”
it may be open to question, perhaps, whether miss buss might not have relaxed her rules in favour of this very remarkable girl. but it is also probable that the very perception of the dangers attending overstrain may have made her resolute against it. miss ellen martha watson had gone to myra lodge, mainly that she might pursue study in higher mathematics, and consequently might have expected to count as more than an ordinary schoolgirl. she was, however, of highly sensitive organization, and no one who knows the care 186exercised over each girl individually can doubt that miss buss was aware of all that concerned her, and judged accordingly.
miss watson gained first-class honours in the senior cambridge local examination while at myra lodge. afterwards, at the university college intermediate, she took the highest prize for applied mathematics and mechanics, as well as a ￡50 scholarship. professor clifford said on this occasion that the proficiency of miss watson would have been very rare in a man, but he had been utterly unprepared to find it in a woman, adding that, “a few more students like miss watson would raise university college to a status far surpassing that of institutions twenty times as rich and two hundred times longer in existence.”
a case so exceptional must stand alone; but still the question does suggest itself, if, throughout her whole school-life, miss watson had been subject to the restrictions judged wholesome by one so wise as miss buss, might she not possibly have been spared to work out her splendid destiny, instead of being so early laid to rest in her lonely south african grave?
it is impossible to form any rules which will include the few brilliant exceptions who are a law to themselves; such, for example, as miss cobbe, one out of a thousand, in being endowed with a physique to match her mental vigour, who gives an instance of the kind of work possible to herself. she is contrasting the old and the new order of things, or impulse versus system.
“i can make no sort of pretensions to have acquired, even in my best days, anything like the instruction which the young students of girton and newnham and lady margaret hall are so fortunate as to possess; and much i envy their opportunities for acquiring accurate scholarship. but i know not whether the method they follow can, on the whole, convey as much of the pure 187delight of learning as did my solitary early studies. when the summer morning sun rose over the trees and shone into my bedroom, finding me still over my books from the evening before, and when i then sauntered out to take a sleep on one of the garden-seats in the shrubbery, the sense of having learnt something, or cleared up some hitherto doubted point, or added a store of fresh ideas to my mental riches, was of purest satisfaction.”
without coming to any final decision on the best mode of dealing with genius, to which study after this fashion may be natural, we may at least safely conclude that even in the most elastic of school boarding-houses, a girl so expansive could scarcely find herself happy, or be a source of happiness to the anxious mistress.
but how happy even a very clever girl might be at myra we may see from some memories of a stay of six months, spent in preparation for girton, where the writer, mrs. lewis, distinguished herself—
“i remember, as if it was yesterday, my first meeting with miss buss, now twenty-three years ago.... at the earliest possible moment she had interviewed me privately, and i was deeply impressed by her earnest manner, by the thoroughness with which she went into my former education, and the evident intention of doing her utmost for me. this i soon knew was characteristic of her. we were, to her, individuals—each one the object of genuine interest and real anxiety....
“she talked to me more as an adult than as a schoolgirl, and i remember with gratitude that she invited me to walk with her to church, or on any occasion when she happened to go out with us, interesting me in some social, educational, or philanthropic subject, talking with such fluency and such a fund of illustration and of racy anecdote that i was sorry when our destination was reached. looking back, i realize what an unusually generous thing it was for all these privileges to be poured out on a raw schoolgirl, and, moreover, on a stranger. that eager, ungrudging, self-spending for others was, to my mind, the most noticeable feature of dear miss buss’ daily life.
“in about two months miss buss began actively arranging for me to see as much of london as possible during my stay with her. 188with all the varied work and cares of her busy days upon her, she would constantly ask, ‘had i seen this place of interest? had i heard that famous preacher? had i ever been so-and-so?’ and every spare afternoon or evening was used to the best advantage, either personally, or with any lady she could find free to chaperone me. she often told me that a teacher ought to have as wide and varied an experience as possible, and all the general information she could get, and should never think that book-learning alone would fit her for her post. foreign travel, social intercourse, general reading, all were insisted on as indispensable. and she would give me bits of the history of her own struggles....
“the happiness of all her pupils was to her an object of real solicitude. i remember my delighted surprise on one of the first saturdays at her cheery invitation, ‘now, girls, which of you would like to come to see maccabe, at st. george’s hall, with me this afternoon?’ i knew the week had been a very busy one, and i wondered how miss buss could find the energy to be so gay, and to laugh with the merriest of us at the jokes.
“looking back, i realize that i cannot over-estimate the value of such association with that noble, earnest, sympathetic nature. and, certainly, i have never seen any one who so equally combined earnestness of purpose, untiring industry, indomitable perseverance, and shrewd common sense, with the perfection of womanly sympathy.”
of the intellectually stimulating effect of this association another pupil speaks strongly—
“although it is quite impossible for any of us to measure the great influence for good that miss buss has exerted over the whole of our lives, in one particular i have specially felt the great help her training has been to me personally, viz. the choice of books and taste for good literature.
“i can remember, quite early in my school-life, the cutting satire with which miss buss would criticize some of the modern trash in the shape of literature, so that one felt (and that feeling i have never lost) one simply could not read such books. on the other hand, she always recommended plenty of good wholesome books to help us in the choice of our reading; while, in pointing out passages, or in explaining allusions, she roused interest, and cultivated the taste for all that is good and pure in literature.
“she applied to books, as to other things, her favourite motto: ‘aim high, and you will strike high!’
189“she seemed, in all her teaching, to agree with the poet lowell, that ‘not failure, but low aim, is crime!’
“a favourite subject for debate was the ethics of waste, showing that everything wantonly destroyed is a loss to the community. the wickedness of waste of food seems to have excited much attention, and set the girls, among themselves, to discuss and make calculations concerning it which served—as they were meant to do—to give safe and harmless topics for talk.
“akin to this was the effort to make girls look into the future, and not to trust to what might happen, but to prepare by present action in acquiring habits of decision and industry. she thought that every woman should be independent, and deprecated dependence on brothers or other friends, so long as effort was possible on their own part.”
another “myra girl” seizes on a point very characteristic, when she says—
“to schoolgirl and friend alike, miss buss was entirely natural. she was too great to think of, or to need, exterior aids to respect. forgetful of herself, she was ever ready to share her thoughts or memories with all who could be interested or helped by them.
“in her conversation she avoided all personal gossip. never did an unkind or hasty word about a fellow-being cross her lips, and often in the school addresses, she told us that by chatter the ninth commandment was easily broken, and that topics about acquaintances begun in innocence, ended only in harm and hurt to others.”
there is a story of her that, one day, after a visitor had gone, miss buss seemed very uncomfortable, and finally said, “i feel as if i had been stung all over; that talk has left so many stings behind it!” it was her rule, carefully kept, never to repeat unpleasant things; but she never forgot to mention any kind word said about others.
miss fawcett speaks of miss buss’ sympathy with young life and its needs, and she adds—
“the girls were a great happiness to miss buss. if one or other did give trouble through temper—and this did worry her—we 190would sometimes comfort each other by reflecting how many of them did nothing of the kind, but went on tranquilly and happily. ‘yes,’ she would say, ‘it is the old story; the ninety and nine are apt to be forgotten in the struggle with the one!’ and she would cheer up.”
she was very indulgent to her girls at the half-term holidays. besides sending them for pleasant excursions, she liked them to be able to go into the kitchen to make toffee, and to cook some little dainty (northcountry cakes or specialities), or anything else they might like.
the girls’ birthdays were always marked by some special treat. on one occasion we hear that the younger children were, for once, to be allowed to make “just as much noise as they liked.” the results were so “tremendous” that a friendly policeman looked in to see if his services were required, greatly relieved to find that the shrieks which had attracted him were only shrieks of laughter.
but, whilst delighting in real fun, the line was drawn, hard and fast, at slang, roughness, and, above all, at practical jokes. no girl who had once had a talk with her on this last topic was likely to make a second attempt within reach of miss buss. the doings of certain “smart” sets found small tolerance in her eyes. nor did the “dodo” and “yellow aster” literature fare better, though for most of it she would have probably given the prescription that worked so well in one particular case of morbid excitement—“closed doors and open windows,” or silence and fresh air.
miss buss had remarked, as a fact of her experience, that if girls of great natural vanity could not take the lead in any other way, they developed something sensational in health. hearing of a case of this sort in one of the boarding-houses, she requested to be sent 191for if another fainting fit should come on. this was done. on arriving, she found the girls’ room full of anxious bystanders, who were at once dismissed, only excepting the head of the house, who was asked to close the door and open all the windows.
miss buss then demanded a large jug of “the very coldest water that could be procured,” adding, in distinct tones, “there is no sort of danger in this kind of attack, and the most certain cure is a sudden dash of very cold water in the face.”
in telling me this story, she added, with one of her most genial smiles—
“i saw that the child had her best frock on, and i wanted to give her time.”
before the water came, the patient was able to gasp out, “ah, i feel better now, thank you!”
“that is right, my child. i am glad you feel better. and now remember, in future, that you need never alarm either yourself or any one else. if you feel a little faintness coming on, just retire to your own room, without saying anything about it. shut your door, open all the windows, and lie down quietly. you will soon find yourself well again.”
there was no recurrence of the attack.
with weakness of will miss buss could by nature have little sympathy. but she was stern only when she knew that a will might be roused to greater effort, which, if let alone, could only grow more and more feeble. with merely morbid and self-centred natures she had still less affinity, and for these the prescription, “do your next duty first!” would be very strongly enforced.
coldness or extreme reserve of manner was always a trial to miss buss, as to all persons of a naturally demonstrative temperament. it was true that she herself 192sometimes exercised a repressive influence, but this was only when she was very much run down or worried. usually, she drew people out by her frank kindness. one of her very favourite stories for her girls was mrs. gatty’s charming kitten story, “purr when you are pleased!” she liked every one to show feelings of pleasure or kindness, and in this she set them a bright example.
miss fawcett recalls, among many things bearing on the same point, a remark made to her by miss buss, as they passed two new girls—both of whom are since known to fame—“it is always a refreshment of spirit to me to look at those two happy sisters!” natures of this kind were a real help in her times of depression or discouragement, though, doubtless, none of the girls ever dreamt that one so strong could need help. other teachers will understand from experience this joy of whole-hearted and sympathetic obedience from their pupils. and it is easy to measure what this must have been to miss buss in those later days, when she was no longer the energetic young teacher, sweeping every one along with her in a rapture of devotion, but, instead, had to carry, in addition to her own inevitable burdens, all the cares of her wide public work.
it may be a direct result of public-school life, assimilating the modern girl to her schoolboy brother, but certainly it is to be observed that the high-school girl rarely seems to have that power of expressing her feelings which made her mother or grandmother so much easier in all social relations. it is more than probable that, in thus growing like the typical “schoolboy,” she may in reality feel more, and not less, from this very habit of repression. but the fact remains that she is more difficult of approach than the girl of other days.
193with special cases quite individual in their nature, miss buss was rarely known to fail. as one of her staff observes—
“the way in which she managed difficult and obstinate pupils was marvellous. she would spend hours with them, and never thought the time wasted if at last she made the slightest impression. often, when this did not appear on the surface, it was shown weeks, months, or even years after, by some little note or message.”
in thanking a young friend for some proof of affection there is a pathetic little appeal—
“you young people can form no idea—till your time comes—of how much pain a little indifference can inflict, especially when both the old and the young have warm hearts. my life needs close love from some one—i have given a large amount of mine to some one—and when he not only responds, but initiates loving remarks or caresses, he fills the old person’s heart with warmth, brightness, and love.”
on some few occasions, when more than usually overdone, i have heard miss buss admit with a weary sigh that she found the girls of the last decade of her work so much less easy to influence than those of the first; since, even when they were inwardly touched, they seemed unable to show it after the old fashion.
“autres temps, autres m?urs.” but yet, making all due allowance, if these “difficult” girls could have seen this friend after one of the encounters so terrible to her, and have realized how spent and heart-sick she was, they must have taken less pride in their defiance or hardness. she cared for them so deeply that it was real anguish of soul to her to think of the future sorrows inevitable for tempers undisciplined and wills unsubdued.
with this question of the influence on manners of the public school comes what does seem a real objection to the new development—an objection most 194strongly felt by those who look farthest back. with her invariable point and terseness, miss cobbe thus puts this matter in a nutshell—
“william of wykeham’s motto: ‘manners makyth manne,’ was understood to hold good emphatically concerning the making of woman. the abrupt-speaking, courtesy-neglecting, slouching, slangy young damsel, who may now perhaps carry off the glories of a university degree, would then have seemed still needing to be taught the very rudiments of feminine knowledge. when i recall the type of perfect womanly gentleness and high breeding which then and there was formed, it seems to me as if, in comparison, modern manners are all rough and brusque. we have graceful women in abundance still, but the peculiar, old-fashioned suavity, the tact which made every one in a company happy and at ease—most of all, the humblest individual present—and which at the same time, effectually prevented the most audacious from transgressing les bienséances by a hair; of that suavity and tact we seem to have lost the tradition.”
but miss buss had always faith enough in the future to regard the modern roughness as merely a transitional stage, and as the outcome, in the first place, of the higher standard of morals which places fact before seeming. the perfect outward grace of the courtly days did not always imply corresponding grace within. when these first days of reaction shall pass, and a really wide and high culture shall have become general, we may expect the development of a new gracefulness which shall be the genuine outcome of a truly gracious spirit.
“for manners are not idle, but the fruit
of loyal nature, and of noble mind.”
in the very early days at myra, the rules were few and simple, and the girls were trusted to do the right for love of it. miss buss believed in the force of a strong public opinion which should put all wrong-doing in its true light as hurtful to the community; and she considered it the chief advantage of a large public 195school that a strong feeling for the right should prevail, and, by its very force, put down all that was base or ignoble.
it was a grief to her to make new rules, and i can recall her sorrow, on several occasions, when it became necessary to add to those already existing—in every case as the result of some act on the part of a selfish minority, who thus imposed additional burdens on the obedient majority.
miss fawcett, who had long experience at myra, and miss edwards, who followed her there, speak very strongly about the thoughtful care which in all cases aimed at preventing possible dangers. girls whose influence might be hurtful to each other were placed in rooms remote; and the sitting-rooms were made attractive, and thus kept the pupils to some extent under constant supervision.
in miss buss’ letters during the holidays there are many proofs of this thoughtfulness. she writes to miss fawcett—
“of these two i know nothing—morally, i mean. but a. ought to be kept if possible from b., and also from c. and d.; the former cannot manage her, and the latter gives in, perhaps, to her. would it do for her to take f.’s bed, in g.’s room? it requires consideration.”
this consideration reached all round. another long letter goes into arrangements for miss fawcett’s own relief from some of the care, each detail being worked out with the utmost exactness.
or again—
“can you invite x. to visit you on the half-term holiday, or, if possible, from friday or saturday before? i fear she may be asked to two places where i do not wish her to go just now. she is not easy to manage, and her companions are of great importance; 196and yet it is difficult for me to decline invitations when the reason cannot be explained.
“if you do not much mind, i will not send the three girls on sunday until six o’clock, when they will be in time for service, unless it is raining.
“but i give up an hour or rather more to the girls on sunday afternoons, and have been obliged, since that difficulty last year, to refuse to let them out on sundays, except at the half-term. if by any chance a girl goes out in the morning, i expect her back to tea. they can go out on saturday afternoons occasionally.”
here is a note after the great explosion in regent’s park, on october 2nd, 1874—
“i hope nothing worse than broken glass has happened at your house in consequence of the terrible shock this morning. thirteen of my windows are shattered, but i am too thankful for the preservation of the young inmates of my house to mind anything.
“my first thought was that the stack of chimneys had blown down, and, in falling, had crushed the roof in on the beds of mary and ethel p—— and edith a——. the noise seemed to come from that quarter. in an instant i was upstairs, to ascertain if they were safe.
“i find myself even now shaking from the shock to the nervous system. my girls behaved admirably. they were all quiet.”
from the early days to the latest miss buss gave short addresses weekly on some moral text, choosing frequently some recent story of great deed or high thought, and making it interesting as she brought it to bear on the daily life of the girls. as one of the staff remarks—
“the high moral tone of the school was materially helped by these weekly addresses. four forms met her in the lecture hall, and teachers and pupils listened to her wise counsel. one of her favourite texts was the life of dorothy wordsworth, as she earnestly pleaded with the girls, above all things, to aim at being true women, and not to let their school-work in any way interfere with their home duties, never forgetting that they must bring either sunshine or cloud into the home-life.”
197here is a little sketch of the sunday talks at myra—
“i love to picture that drawing-room, miss buss to the left of the fire, her lamp on the table at her right, and the girls grouped around her at the fire, often some at her feet.... i never heard any one read as she did, and especially on those sundays! every word told. and then she would pause, and send some truth home by an illustration from her own experience.... after the holidays, she was generally full of some new thought: mrs. norton’s ‘lady of la garaye’ was brought after a happy holiday at dinan.... she spent hours in the preparation of the myra and school addresses, a testimony to the stress she laid on their importance.”
there are some pretty little glimpses of the inner life at myra, given by a pupil who spent there a somewhat prolonged school-life, in which she came into very close relation to the beloved teacher—
“my earliest recollection of miss buss was when i went in for the entrance exam.; in a state of great trepidation, i accompanied her along the corridor to take off my things, and i think she saw my poor fingers shaking, for she suddenly took me in her warm embrace, and said, ‘do your best, my dear child, and you must leave the rest,’ and then, looking me in the face, with another kiss, she said, ‘i think we are going to be friends.’ and the radiant smile that accompanied the kiss won my heart and banished my fears.
“i had been at myra lodge only a few weeks when, one of the girls having acted contrary to regulations, a warm discussion on her conduct took place in the playroom downstairs, some defending and some disapproving of her conduct. we were quite unaware that in the heat of discussion our voices were loud enough to be heard upstairs; it was a point on which i felt strongly, and i expressed myself somewhat emphatically for a new-comer. the next day miss buss sent for me, said she knew of the incident, and ‘you said so-and-so, my child; i am delighted to think you feel in that way, you were on the right side, and remember, dear, i shall always expect to find you on the right side.’ how often that belief in my being ‘on the right side’ helped me to make the struggle for the right only i can tell!”
198the same writer gives a glimpse of the brightest side of the relation between the head and her myra girls—
“miss buss would often come round and see we were quite comfortable in our beds, and give us a maternal ‘tuck-up.’ one morning at breakfast she came behind my chair, and, turning my chin up with her hand to look in my face, said with laughing voice and eye—
“‘well, did i cheat you last night?’
“a vision of a figure in red dressing-gown tucking me up and kissing me sprang into my mind, and i said—
“‘oh, i remember; i thought it was mother.’
“and, whispering to me, she said, as she kissed me, ‘i thought so, dear; you gave me such a hug, you sent me so happy to bed!’”
and this, again, from another old pupil, is equally attractive—
“never shall i forget her kindness when confined to my room at myra by illness. it was the bright spot in my day when miss buss appeared in the evening to tuck me up in bed, and wish me good night. more than once she was on her way to some dinner or meeting, and wore a blue moiré, which i thought singularly becoming. her smile, peculiarly sweet, piquant, and gracious, lighted up my long, dull hours, and lingers with me still.
“there was something so large and unfluctuating about her that one felt one could trust her with and through everything.”
an apparently harmless bit of nonsense brought about another episode which deeply impressed the girl who tells it—
“miss buss was in her little room. in her kindest way she held out her hand to me and said—
“‘dear child, i want to talk to you; did you write that?’ producing the book.
“‘oh yes,’ i laughed, ‘just to tease louie!’
“i shall never forget the way in which she drew me to her, put my head on her shoulder, and then talked to me. she pointed out that the offence in itself was not a serious one, but that the jesting with a subject so serious as love was one that no girl should 199indulge in; and then followed the most beautiful little picture of what true earthly love might be, that makes me glow to think of now, and she urged me never to trifle with the subject in any form, reserving all my ‘best’ for the one who was to give me ‘what is god’s best gift on earth, dear, the love of a good man, such as the love your father and mother have, and such as i hope he may give you.’ how glad i am to think she knew i have received that gift!”
it must indeed have been a joy to this happy young wife to be able often to brighten the later days of the solitary worker, whom she mourns now with tender and grateful remembrance in words that find far echoes—
“you know my deep affection, i may truly say veneration, for the dear one, and i feel as if one of my very nearest had gone. i look on it as one of the greatest privileges of my life to have lived in such close contact with her for so many years. dear, dear miss buss, what an inspiration she has been, and what a responsibility rests with us to carry out what she has always taught us as the ideal of life! her influence in the world is untold; and i am sure many are the lives she has influenced in critical times when the thought of what she would do, or would wish, has turned the scale in the right direction.”
