“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 would 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 for 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—