One of her greatest pleasures was to see her own ideals and enthusiasms reflected in the young; and next to the care of her family the prosperity of the village school at Petersham was perhaps nearest her heart. It grew and flourished through her devotion. In 1891 it was generously taken over by the British and Foreign School Society, but the change made no difference to her interest nor to the time she gave to it. The warm affection of the people of Petersham was a great happiness to her; after long illness and enforced absence from the village she wrote to her daughter: "You can't think what good it did me to see a village friend again." The feeling among the villagers may be gathered from two brief passages in letters written after her death: a gardener in Petersham alluded to her as "our much-loved friend, Countess Russell," and another man--who had been educated at Petersham School--wrote: "She was really like a mother to many of we 'Old Scholars.'" Lady Russell's letters will show that her interest in politics remained as keen as ever to the end; and she eagerly watched the changes which affected Ireland. To the end of her life she retained the fervour of her youthful Radicalism, and with advancing years her religious opinions became more and more broad. To her there was no infallibility in any Bible, any prophet, any Church. With an ever-deepening reverence for the life and teaching of Jesus, she yet felt that "The highest Revelation is not made by Christ, but comes directly from the Universal Mind to our minds." [98] Her last public appearance in Richmond was at the opening of the new Free Church, on April 16, 1896, which she had joined some years before as being the community holding views nearer to her own than any other. [98] Rev. F.W. Robertson, of Brighton. Sermons, 1st Series. There is a side of Lady Russell's mind which her letters do not adequately represent. She was a great reader, and in her letters (written off with surprising rapidity) she does not often say much about the books she was so fond of discussing in talk. Among novelists, Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the one she read most often; Jane Austen too was a favourite; but she also much enjoyed many of the later novelists, especially Charles Dickens and George Eliot.