“After my first trouble she wrote thus to me—
“‘I feel much for you, dear E——. Your experience of life is beginning early, and so is your discipline. Discipline, though wholesome, is never pleasant. And then, when one is young, one’s feelings are so acute. I remember what I went through at your age, and under similar circumstances. Nevertheless, my greater experience than yours, poor child, makes me confess that “tribulation worketh patience.” Amidst all your trials, dear E——, always trust me. I do not intend to let a light thing come between me and “auld lang syne” folks.’”
The second letter is also from one of the madcap order—a wilful, high-spirited bit of mischief, fascinating in her pranks, but often enough a source of real anxiety to her teachers, and even to the dignified head herself, known to this child only when almost worn out with the long strain of school-life and of her heavy public work. But here are words as straight from the child’s heart as from that of the woman who could count back through nearly fifty years of friendship—
“Jan. 31, 1895.
“Dear Miss Edwards,
“There is so much I want to say, but I do not know how to say it. This distance is so awful.
“I think it is because I cannot realize that I shall never see Miss Buss again. If I were near I could realize it better; it seems more like some fearful dream to me.
“I wish I was near you to tell you how deeply I sympathize and share in the sorrow that I know the loss of so kind and true a friend must be to you.
“And how many hundreds of girls will feel the same!
“All the world over there will be hearts aching to think that they will never see Miss Buss again.