Another element in her power as a teacher was her personal interest in the girls. It was not solely an intellectual or literary interest, but she thought of their characters and religious training. To one of the girls she wrote, “I never felt it an interruption for you to come into my room; how we used to talk about everything!” When they were in trouble, they came naturally to her with their confidences. She was sometimes called “Mother Larcom,” and she earned the title, for she acted like a mother to the homesick girl, and quieted by her gentle persuasiveness the tears of repentance, or bitter weeping of sorrow, of some of the more unfortunate of her pupils. Writing about one of the girls whose religious development she had watched, she said, “She is unfolding from the heart to God most openly, now. I am sure there is a deep life opening in her. I have rejoiced over her.” She discovered, through their moods--as in the case of one who was crying a great deal--or by the frequency of a permitted correspondence, their real or fancied love-affairs. After winning their confidence she could wisely advise them. Thus in one instance she wrote: “If such intimacy is true friendship, it will be a benefit to both; yet it is not without danger. I have seen the severest sufferings from the struggle between duty and feeling in such relations. I have seen life embittered by reason of the liberty allowed to a cousinly love, left unwatched. It is hard to keep the affections right in quantity and quality. But I need not say that a true love needs no limits; it is only falsehood that embitters every sweet and pure cup.” When the girls left school, they carried her love with them; and by correspondence and visits to their homes, where she was always a welcome guest, she followed them through the deepest experiences of their lives. One of her scholars said, “If I were to sum up the strong impression she made upon me, I should say it all in ‘I loved her.’” Another wrote, “Miss Larcom was to me a peerless star, unattainable in the excellence and purity of her character. She stood as the ideal woman, whom I wished to be like.” When death invaded a home, she knew how to write:-- NORTON, October 7, 1855. ... Why is it we dread the brief parting of death so much? Do we really doubt meeting them again? Will they have lost themselves in the great crowd of immortals, so that when our time comes to follow them we cannot find them? I am just reading for the first time, “In Memoriam,” and it fills my mind with these questions. I think I should be homesick in a mansion filled with angels, if my own precious friends whom I loved were not within call.... The following letter shows her intimacy with the girls:-- TO MISS SUSAN HAYES WARD. NORTON, April 2, 1855.