This second letter brought in about £100 more, raising the result of Mrs. Grey’s appeal to £147 2_s._ 6_d._ The total amount collected by all, _after three years of hard work_, came to not more than £700. And yet Miss Jewsbury’s hopeful words, written about this time, were quite true. Public interest was roused, though not as yet to the point of generous giving. Miss Jewsbury writes— “Give my love to Miss Buss, and wish her a happy New Year. The idea of a thorough education for women has now, I think, taken hold of the public mind, and will be followed by the desire to obtain it. Miss Buss’s schools will bring forth abundant fruit. She has borne the burden and _cold_ of the day, but her work will take root. There was a notice of Mrs. Grey’s letter in the _Manchester Examiner and Times_, and a leading article too. I had seen a nice letter of Mrs. S. C. Hall’s yesterday. Yes, Mrs. Grey _is_ charming, and _good_ to the core.” The subject was in all the papers. Miss Cobbe did good service in the _Echo_, and Miss Chessar in the _Queen_. Our hopes had naturally risen high when Mrs. Grey took the question up so warmly. The disappointment was proportionately great. And, bad as this might seem, there was yet more to follow. During the six months since the reading of Mrs. Grey’s paper before the Society of Arts, Mr. Rogers had collected £5000 for a girls’ school in the City. But some City endowments—the “Datchelor Charity” and others—had been found available for girls’ education. Consequently, at the seventh annual meeting of “the Corporation formed for Promoting Middle-class Education in the City of London _and the Suburbs_,” it was proposed that the £5000—_collected for girls expressly_—should be used for the new hall of the Cowper Street School for Boys (already endowed with £60,000), this particular sum being just what would make up the £11,000 needed for a new hall. Several voices, notably that of Alderman Besley, were raised against this act, and mention was made that this sum was all that was asked by the Camden School, _in the suburbs_, and very close to the City. But the motion was carried. It was to no purpose that leading journals, as well as “educational enthusiasts,” were “aghast at the announcement that a sum of money contributed for the special purpose of endowing a middle-class school for girls is to be devoted to the purpose of beautifying and enlarging the present middle-class school for boys.” The thing was done.