In the year following these meetings, Mrs. Ashley Smith wrote an article for the Magazine on the reports received from various members and on the general working of the Guild, which by the end of 1885 numbered nearly two hundred members. This is now an old story, nor is there anything specially remarkable in the many details of work in Sunday-schools and coffee-clubs. Yet even at the time when the Guild, compared with its present self, looked little more than ‘seven maids with seven mops,’ the tale of individual work done shows that already much quiet persistent effort was being made by Miss Beale’s old girls. This association, founded on principles rather than rules, was indicative of its origin in a mind which habitually dwelt rather on _being_ than _doing_. The small beginning, the gradual steady growth, the outcome of ideals and thoughts, were consistent with the whole of the College history. And to re-read the story of the foundation of the Guild is to remember once more how many quiet, unobtrusive, untiring workers have helped to make that history. In especial, the immense work and patience of the secretaries can perhaps never be adequately recognised: the labour of merely reading and tabulating the reports was considerable. ‘The General Secretary,’ wrote Mrs. Ashley Smith on one occasion, ‘on receiving the reports enters under more than sixty different headings the occupations of all the Guild members. It will be easily understood that the task of reducing to order and collating a chaotic mass of miscellaneous information on all subjects, from the keeping of poultry to the study of Hebrew, from making the beds to organising institutes, is not a very simple affair, and that therefore an immense saving of time and trouble is effected when the proper form is used, and it does not become necessary to wade through a letter full of apologies and exculpatory remarks, before one can arrive at the gist of the report.’ On another occasion, after enumerating the different charitable and self-improving societies to which Guild members belonged, she said: ‘It almost gives one a headache to read this long list of occupations; and when at the end, hoping for a little breathing space, we come to an “odd minute society,” it puts the finishing touch to the bewildering sensation of restless activity, and one begins to wish for a “Sit-down-in-peace-and-calm-yourself Society.”’