The council, in addition to Mrs. Grey and Miss Shirreff, consisted of Miss Chessar, Dr. E. A. Abbott, Mr. J. H. Rigg, Mr. R. N. Shore, Mr. C. H. Lake, and Mr. Douglas Galton. The articles of association were drafted by Mr. William Shaen, who, till his death, in 1886, was a generous and true friend to the college.
Miss Louisa Brough became secretary, under Mrs. Grey, as organizing secretary. Unhappily, after working for a year or so, Mrs. Grey’s health broke down, and she was ordered abroad. It was then that Miss Buss came to the front, though she had been quietly helpful from the beginning. Some letters to her from Rome show Mrs. Grey’s estimate of this help—
“23, Piazza de Spagna, Roma,
“Feb. 11, 1879.
“It is really too good of you, in the midst of your hard-worked life, to make time for writing me such a charming long letter as I received a few days ago.... We have left the hotel, and have very sunny rooms just at the foot of the great stairs. How I wish you were over the way, where I used to pick you up two years ago.
“Except from yourself, we hear hardly anything from the college. Your hopeful report is a great joy to us, because you know the difficulties so well that you will never be over sanguine. How kind it is of you and Miss Chessar to work for it as you do, and Dr. Abbott deserves more thanks than I can express. I would like to write to him only I feel it would be imposing on him a letter to write, and that would be no kindness. Will you tell him this when you meet, and something of what we both feel about his generous gift of time and thought to the institution that we have cared for so earnestly and are driven to forsake.... We must, as you say, make our scheme as we go along, and large numbers would be an embarrassment. As to funds, you make no complaint, and that is comforting.... Once the college is in settled good work, and the Cambridge scheme is published, I cannot doubt that many will be found to help.”
Mrs. Grey was never strong enough to return to the work so near her heart, and her great comfort was in the thought that with Miss Buss’ oversight it must go on successfully. On the occasion of a presentation to Mrs. Grey of a beautiful casket, with an address from the Girls’ Public Day-school Company, Miss Shirreff writes thus to Miss Buss—
“We are both of us touched to the heart’s core by your letter. Such words from one who has herself been so brave and so successful a pioneer in the cause of woman’s education are the highest testimonial we could receive, and we value them as such. And a large debt we owe to you also, for all the practical organizations of our schools we learnt from you....
“I may honestly say that the receipt of that address, and the additional gratification of seeing yours and Miss Beale’s name attached to it, gave my sister the only real pleasure she has felt during the weary months of this year. The less she hopes ever to regain her power of work the more she values that testimony to the worth of her past work.
“We have had, of course, much passing enjoyment in the beautiful scenery we have dwelt amongst, but there is a dark shadow over all. It is not perhaps reasonable, when sixty is long passed, to mourn that an active career is stopped short, but you know better than any one how, in dealing with education, one must still feel that no one worker can be spared—do we not know how all the best are over-worked?”