“To Miss Emily Findon, B.A.”
Equally to the point is another note, of which the recipient says: “The whole tone was so strong and so strengthening, so different from the many letters of kind, but more or less worrying, sympathy received at the time”—
“Schlangenbad.
“My dear A——,
“I am very sorry to hear that you and X—— have failed to get through the ‘Intermediate.’ I send you my love and sympathy. Do not fret. You will succeed later on, when, as I hope, you will try again; and your knowledge will be all the firmer for having to work longer.
“You will, no doubt, carry out the proposed plan, viz. go to Cambridge for a year, and leave the degree till after? You will have a very happy time at Cambridge, I know.
“Have you heard how Y—— is getting on in Sweden? How well I remember my delightful holiday there.”
And with an account of life at a German spa, and messages to other members of the family, the letter ends, hopeful and cheery.
It was always delightful to watch Miss Buss with those of her former “children” who had expanded into the dignity of B.A., or B.Sc., and were entitled to wear the gown and “mortar-board” appertaining to this new rank. No mother ever took more interest in her girls’ first party frock or presentation robes than did Miss Buss in those early days in the then quite novel attire of her “girl-graduates.” Mrs. Bryant had not been a pupil in the school, but she was young enough to pass for one, and the sight of her gorgeous gold-and-scarlet doctor’s gown was a supreme joy to her older friend, to whom no such distinction had been possible in her own young days. There was never a touch of envy or of selfish regret in this sympathy with the winners of the honours for which she herself had longed in vain—no, not in vain, since that longing had helped to open the way to those who had since outstripped her in the race. Miss Toplis, in her sketch of Miss Buss, in the Educational Review, calls attention to—
“two characteristics which may perhaps be known only to those in daily contact with her. One was that jealousy and selfishness were impossible to her nature; the other, her power of living in the lives of others. The success or distinction of friend or colleague was one of her greatest pleasures. No one could share such pleasures as Miss Buss did, and the loss of her ever-ready sympathy in joy or sorrow is one of the realities we cannot yet face.”