A good part of the holidays even then was spent in Cheltenham, but there were some visits abroad. One year Miss Beale accompanied her brother Edward, then recovering from illness, to the Black Forest. On another occasion she went with her sister to Chamounix, and enjoyed the mountain walks. In 1864 she spent some time at Zürich. More than once she went to Paris. This continental travel was by no means for recreation and refreshment only. It nearly always implied visits to schools, where fresh and foreign methods were studied. No opportunity of gaining new ideas was ever neglected, for Miss Beale could not understand ever living apart from her work. In the holidays, as in school-time, she was still working, though in a different way. In Cheltenham itself there was little time or opportunity for recreation. Society, as the word is generally understood, had little to say to the new head-mistress, whose insignificant figure and plain dress did not provoke much interest. Her absence of small talk, her quiet intellectual face, her reputation as a clever woman, her connection with Queen’s College, all represented something unwonted and new. She had received no welcome from the religious world of Cheltenham, whose leaders, Mr. Close and Mr. Boyd, though one of them had accepted a seat on the Council, remained aloof from the interests of the Ladies’ College, perhaps sharing the prejudice still prevalent against any departure from the beaten track of women’s education. It was of little moment to Miss Beale to find herself unsought by society, for she seldom cared to spend an evening from her work. She could not understand the position, which some have thought it wise to take up, that it is good for a school to have its head seen in society. She held it to be best for a school that its head should give herself unremittingly to her work,—disastrous to the welfare of any pupils for their teacher to sacrifice to social engagements the time she ought to give to the preparation of lessons. The friends of that early time were a few thoughtful people who were interested like herself in education. On first coming to Cheltenham Miss Beale, to please Miss Brewer, she said, attended Christchurch, but she soon left this for St. Philip’s and St. James’ at Leckhampton, and for St. Paul’s. Both these churches were less obviously in the possession of wealthy seat-holders than the churches in the town. To St. Philip’s she went at that time when she ‘wanted to be quiet,’ taking up a position near the door. All the middle of that church was then occupied by charity children and the poor, but there were in the rich part of the congregation many whose names have interest from one cause or another.