Preparations for the school are going on apace. We have moved into our house and it is too beautiful. I had forgotten how lovely it was. Fortunately, the beautiful paper in the second floor, the two drawing rooms and Mamma’s room, has not been at all injured. The school is to open Jan. 1st and, strange to say, Mamma is receiving letters from all over the State asking terms etc. I thought there would be no applications, every one being so ruined by the War, but Mamma’s name and personality make people anxious to give their daughters the benefit of her influence; and, I suppose, the people in the cotton country are not so completely ruined and without money as we rice planters of the low country are. Be it as it may, the limit Mamma put of ten boarding pupils is nearly reached already. My cousin, Marianna Porcher, will be the head teacher of French and Literature; she is wonderfully clever; I will have the younger girls, and I certainly will have my hands full, for there are a great many applications for the entry of day-scholars of the younger set. Mamma will teach all the classes of History, for which she is admirably fitted. Prof. Gibbes from the Charleston College will teach Mathematics and Latin to the advanced scholars; but I want Mlle. Le Prince, who is a first class French teacher, engaged to live in the house as well as teach. There is no way of learning French equal to speaking it. But Mamma very truly says we must go slowly, and be sure we are making, before we expand. I am frightened to death. I know girls and have been to Boarding School and Mamma’s plan of no rules except those of an ordinary well-ordered, well-conducted home, seems to me perfectly impracticable; but, having once said that, I do not dare argue the matter. I am amazed to see how clever Mamma is. She wanted to send C. to College in Virginia, his constitution has been much injured by the heavy marching and privation endured in the Army at 16. Carrying that heavy knapsack on those killing, long marches without food has given him a stoop and a weary look in his beautiful hazel eyes; but it was impossible for her to borrow the $200.00 necessary to send him. She thought the change of climate from this relaxing low country air would do him good, and enable him to build up; but, as she could not get the money, she has placed him at the Charleston College, and I am truly thankful to have him at home. Only, restless, Cassandra-like, I see a problem ahead; he is so very good-looking!