“I hope Eleanor will send me a short note to say where you have gone, and to give me some account of to-morrow’s ceremony.
“With my dear love and good wishes,
“Believe me, yours affectionately,
“Frances M. Buss.”
To “meet the glad with joyful smiles” would always have been easy to her, but she was more often called “to wipe the weeping eyes;” for the words of another of the recent pupils was curiously true—
“Of late years it has often struck me as melancholy that the most successful and happiest of her old pupils, settled in homes of their own, or teaching in schools at a distance, could do little more than send an occasional letter, or pay a flying visit, while numbers of the unsuccessful, the weak and helpless, came back to her for the advice and help she never failed to give. Seeing, as she did, numbers of these, she was very strongly impressed by the absolute necessity for young girls to be trained to some employment by which they might, if necessary, earn a livelihood. For women to be dependent on brothers and relations, she considered an evil to be avoided at all costs, and she tried to keep before us the fact that training for any work must develop a woman’s intellect and powers, and therefore make her—married or single—a better and a nobler being.”
Another friend adds on this point—
“She was so kind and unprejudiced by unconventionality, that she was just as interested and sympathetic and helpful towards an old pupil, who came to her about trying to set up a business (such as dressmaking or millinery), as she was to one going to Girton or trying for a head-mistress-ship.”
As instance of the thoroughness that characterized her efforts to help the girls, one of them gives a little experience which will come home to many a mother, as she recalls the solicitude with which Miss Buss went to any medical consultation needed by delicate girls under her care—
“I left school to become a governess myself, and during my first holiday she made an opportunity for a quiet talk with me, entering into all my plans and difficulties, and helping me greatly by her wise and loving counsel. No effort was too great for her to make, if she could thereby help or benefit any of us. Many years later, when my sister had been under Dr. Playfair’s treatment, he ordered her abroad, and she was to be accompanied by a companion of whom he should approve. Miss Buss not only offered to let her join her party, shortly to start for Marienbad, but went herself to see Dr. Playfair at eight a.m. (the only time she was free during term-time), in order that he might be satisfied with her as an escort. This meeting proved a mutual pleasure to them.”