This incident leads one to note that the present year, 1871, saw the ripening into lifelong friendship of S. J.-B.’s acquaintance with Miss Agnes M‘Laren, daughter of the Member for Edinburgh,—a lady who adds one more to the gallery of truly noble women with whom we are brought into contact when reviewing S. J.-B.’s life. At the time of “the Edinburgh Fight,” Miss M‘Laren was engaged in Suffrage work with Miss Taylour, acting as Hon. Secretary to the Association (with no paid subordinate to do the drudgery), travelling on occasion all over Scotland in serious propagation of her principles.[86] She was perhaps the most public- spirited member of a public-spirited family, for the reason that in her the strong purpose, shrewd judgment and liberal sympathies that characterized all, were combined with an instinctive aloofness and even shyness, with a spirit almost of quietism, with a real old-world grace of womanhood. Footnote 86: It is interesting to note that at this time almost all public-spirited women thought the suffrage would be granted before the right to a medical education. They had so nearly got it more than once! “You will accomplish nothing,” S. J-B. was sometimes told, “until we get the vote.” And one is grimly amused to find her expressing a serious fear that the suffrage may be granted before she has had an opportunity of hearing her friend, Miss M‘Laren, speak in support of it. She need have entertained no undue apprehension on this score. She was hailed with something like reverence by the work-worn, hard- driven students at 15 Buccleuch Place, and almost from the first they spoke of her among themselves as “St. Agnes,” a name to which she characteristically took exception as soon as it reached her ears. “DEAR MISS M‘LAREN,” writes S. J.-B. in this connection,— “You can’t seriously suppose that anybody in this house,—least of all that I,—should really laugh at you!—though I don’t doubt that you are a great deal too humble-minded to understand in the least the sort of light in which most of us working women do regard you. However we’ll keep our pet name for you to ourselves if you don’t like it.” And again a few weeks later: “15 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh. June 7th. DEAR MISS M‘LAREN, Though we all miss you here almost daily, I am unselfish enough to be heartily glad that you are going to Germany. I am sure the change of air and scene must do you good, and the chestnut trees at Heidelberg must be simply lovely now. When you get to the top and sit and look down at the valley of the Neckar, you may picture me (as a lonely English teacher at Mannheim) going over there on Sundays to church, and climbing to that brow to enjoy the setting sun and the infinite peacefulness and beauty of the whole scene.