‘I am anxious,’ the letter ran, ‘that you should as soon as possible receive this letter, which is the very earliest reply in my power to make to yours.... I cannot feel very sorry on your own account for your leaving Casterton, although I do so at the manner of it.... I am very glad that you feel the discipline and teaching have been useful to you. I do not know that anything better could be desired for you than a return to Queen’s, but I have something, or rather a _shadow_ of something I wish you to know in case you are disappointed there. I believe a place in the Ladies’ College at Cheltenham is vacant, and if so it might suit you. Miss Procter the Superintendent and many of the Committee are considered High Church. Miss Brewer, I am sure, would be very much pleased to hear from you, and I think would be disposed to facilitate your appointment, if there is still a vacancy. She, being one of the teachers, could answer any inquiries better than I. There is no home provided for the teachers by the Committee, but they have hitherto made private arrangements to live together. ‘Cheltenham, to my mind, presents unusual advantages as a place of residence; combining those of town and country, and last but not least those to be derived from Canon Boyd’s ministry and dear Mr. Bromby’s. I could give you some introductions, but it is too soon to talk of those things yet....’ Miss Beale must have answered this, and probably wrote at the same time to Miss Brewer, whom she had known at Queen’s; but there are no further letters existing on the subject. But she herself told in later life that she declined to apply for the post as she had resolved to seek a Headship. There is no mention of Cheltenham in the diary until May, but it appears that other schools were either applied for or considered. On February 17 we have ‘For school at Holloway.’ On February 18, ‘A letter from a Greenwich school.’ This was perhaps visited on the 22nd, when the diary mentions a journey to Greenwich; but it is not named again. On March 2 we find ‘Mamma wrote to Mrs. Birch about school at Reigate.’ On March 24, ‘Talked to Mr. Hyde about College at Camberwell.’ This possibly appears again in the record of April 17: ‘Mary decides against Camberwell scheme.’