Thus Miss Blair’s school was regarded in part as representative of the old system. When, however, Mrs. Welch started her school, she consulted no one and asked no assistance—at least, of the county people. The aid she sought was only from her friends at the North, and when she received it, she set in, chose her place and built her school, giving out at the same time that it was to be used for sewing classes, debating societies, and other public purposes. Thus this school came to be considered as a foreign institution, conducted on foreign principles, and in opposition to the school already established by the neighborhood. Mrs. Welch not only built a much larger and handsomer structure than any other school-house in that section, but she planted vines to cover the porch, and introduced a system of prizes and rewards so far beyond anything heretofore known in the County, that shortly not only most of the scholars who had attended Blair’s school left, but those from other schools much farther off began to flock to Mrs. Welch’s seminary. The first teacher Mrs. Welch secured to take charge of the institution was a slender, delicate young woman with deep eyes, thin cheeks, and a worn face, who by her too assiduous devotion to what she deemed her duty and an entire disregard of all prudence, soon reduced herself to such a low condition of health that Dr. Cary, who was called in, insisted that she should be sent back to her old home. The next teacher, Miss Slipley, was one who had testimonials high enough to justify the idea that she was qualified to teach in Tübingen. She was a young woman of about thirty, with somewhat pronounced views and a very pronounced manner; her face was plain, but she had a good figure, of which Mrs. Welch, who herself had a fine figure, thought she was much too vain, and as her views relating to the conduct of the school by no means coincided with those of Mrs. Welch, matters were shortly not as harmonious between the two as they might have been. She soon began to complain of the discomforts of her situation and her lack of association. Mrs. Welch deplored this, but thought that Miss Slipley should find her true reward in the sense of duty performed, and told her so plainly. This, Miss Slipley said, was well enough when one had a husband and family to support her, but she had had no idea that she was to live in a wilderness, where her only associates were negroes, and where not a man ever spoke to her, except to bow distantly. So after a little time, she had thrown up her position and gone home, and shortly afterward had married. This, to Mrs. Welch, explained all her high airs. Just then Mrs. Welch received a letter from a young woman she knew, asking her to look out for a position for her. During the war this applicant had been a nurse in a hospital, where Mrs. Welch had learned something of her efficiency. So when Miss Slipley left, Mrs. Welch wrote Miss Bush to come.