“If you have not read ‘Sister Dora’ let me lend it to you. She is an encouragement and a warning! She was very self-willed, and that is different from being strong-willed. She was the latter, too.”
(To her nephew, January 8, 1892.) “I am going to send you two comic books—‘My Wife’s Politics’ and ‘Samantha among the Brethren’—both books bearing on the woman-question—the question of the end of the nineteenth century. You will perhaps live to see the effects of the emancipation of women. Their higher and fuller development, their greater knowledge, and therefore greater sympathy, will bring them nearer to men of the best kind. For the other kind of men—as Mrs. Poyser says, ‘There will always be fools enough to match the men!’ I should like to revisit our planet at the end of the twentieth century, to see the effect on Society of the great revolution of the nineteenth—the Woman’s Rights Question.”
In early days, Miss Buss used at Easter to take a large house by the sea, and fill it with her family—the nephews and nieces bringing young friends—or with pupils or members of the staff. Later, her country house at Epping was open in this way for short holidays, and of these Mrs. Hill says—
“It was delightful to be with Miss Buss at Epping. She generally had something interesting to read to us in the evening. She never minded what we did, and looked indulgently on all kinds of pranks.
“She remembered one’s likes and dislikes in the way of food. One of the last times I had tea with her (in October, 1874) she had some special cakes which she knew I liked, and when Mr. Hill and I were staying with her at Overstrand, if we expressed a liking for anything, she said to her companion, ‘Why do you not get it for them?’
“This minute thoughtfulness is a matter of constant comment. Miss Edwards tells of a visit from an old pupil who brought her daughter to Myra, and at tea-time Miss Buss asked, ‘Does your little girl like sugar as much as you did, my dear?’”
During her nephews’ college career she several times took a house at Cambridge, always arranging something in which her girl-undergraduates could join. Of one of her dances there is an account from her friend Mrs. Mathieson—
“In January, 1886, Miss Buss called and asked me to join her in giving a dance at Cambridge. Her two nephews were there, and Mr. W. Buck. My son was also there, and my daughter at Girton. I think we had about twenty from Girton, and the same number from Newnham, and Miss Hughes brought about twelve from the Training College. Miss Buss and I each took down a party, and there were plenty of men from the various colleges.
“I well remember the interest taken by Miss Buss in the arrangements, and her distress because Girton and Newnham would not extend the time for their students, who were obliged to leave us at 10.30, which, of course, broke up our party, since we were left with fifty men to ten girls, as Miss Hughes took hers away when the other colleges went.”
There is a little note from Miss Buss in reference to this party, in which she says—