‘So many,’ she wrote home, ‘ask if they may come and speak to me; more of them listen when I talk of religion, and come privately to ask advice which I know they try to follow. I do feel that I am of use.... I believe I ought to wait here until either I feel it wrong to stay, or God calls me elsewhere. He has given me much more strength than I had any reason to expect. I shall look forward with greater longing for Christmas; but do get me the papers I want as soon as you can. I want to do as much as possible before I leave. ‘I wrote this last night; take care of it as well as the Committee paper; I may want them. I have a headache to-day, and I am afraid I show the effect. Do not tell Papa anything, if you think it will worry him, but let me have some advice and hear as often as you can.’ But discomfort almost inevitably succeeds complaint. There were fresh interviews with the Committee; some of the matters which most tried her in the school régime were naturally more acutely felt, as she herself grew strained with both anxiety and work. The tone of her letters home grew more sad as she began to see that after all she must give up her post. She could not bear to relinquish work that she felt had been given her to do; but she wrote:— ‘I do not see how it is possible to do much good. I may work upon a few individuals, but the whole tone of the school is unhealthy, and I never felt anything like the depression arising from the constant jar upon one’s feelings caused by seeing great girls constantly professing not to care about religion.... It is next to impossible to bear rudeness and hear so much evil-speaking about all set over them, and keep up one’s spirits so as to be able to teach energetically; I would not want to run away if I thought I could do much good by staying, but I have come to the conclusion that it is time to send in my resignation. I have gained valuable experience, and do not think I have been useless; but under present circumstances it does not seem possible to get on. ‘I was very glad of your nice long letter before, and if you think I am right, should send in perhaps a slight summary of the causes for it with my resignation as soon as I can. I am glad to hear Mama is better.’ Miss Beale’s difficulties were no doubt aggravated by religious questions. Her chief friend on the Committee, one who appreciated her sense of duty and intellectual power, did not wish her to remain at the school. He disliked her theological opinions. She seems hardly to have realised this at the time, though her father may have done so, as can be seen from the following letter:— ‘_November 8, 1857._