It is not surprising that so many of these girls should bear for life the impress of this strong influence. But still there is something to call for comment in the depth of the feeling thus aroused. Before even the suggestion of approaching death had lifted the veil of commonplace, which so often hides from us the beauty of those with whom we walk the dusty path of everyday life, there came, in answer to questions about the “story of the school,” so many reminiscences of the early days, giving the freshness of early enthusiasm, all undimmed by the daily intercourse of nearly fifty years, that one could not but marvel. Many of those first pupils have remained as teachers, many others have settled in the neighbourhood as friends, and to not a few this deep affection has been the master-passion of their lives. In the wisdom of these later times it is thought well to chill the fervour of the too engrossing devotion to which very young enthusiasts are prone. But nothing seems to have checked the ardour of these early days, while only good has resulted from a love which has moulded so many lives to strength and beauty. One of the old pupils says of this time— “She was true, so staunch, so utterly wanting in all the little pettinesses that so often mar even noble characters, that it is no wonder we, her own girls, made a ‘hero’ of her and worshipped her. But it was a noble worship, and killed our selfishness. We wanted not so much her approbation, but to live such lives that, could she know them, might deserve her approval.” And another, of later date, commenting on the modern repression of youthful enthusiasm, fixes on the point that essentially divides the influence that is only life-giving from that which is sickly and morbid— “Any devotion roused by her love and care for those brought into contact with her never savoured of this foolish adoration, because her sympathy, though so personal, was in a sense so impersonal and altruistic. She helped people because they wanted help, and not that _she_ might be an absorbing personality to them.” Of a piece with the selflessness of such ministry is another characteristic mentioned by the same writer— “There is one point which always specially struck and helped me, and that was the wonderful way she had of bringing together people who would help each other by virtue of her sympathetic insight into character. Many most fruitful friendships must owe their origin to her loving thought. Even when, from the fulness of her own life, she was unable, to the same extent in the small details, to ‘mother’ all her ‘children,’ yet she always had some friend or ‘other child’ ready to go on with what she had begun.”