curriculum, and a statement of urgent needs which had arisen.
She closed with a recommendation that her term of office should
end in June, 1898, as she believed that the necessities which had
led to her appointment no longer existed, and she recognized that
new demands pressed, which she was not fitted to meet. As Mrs. Irvine
had stated verbally, both to the Board of Trustees and to a committee
appointed by them to consider her recommendation, that she would
not serve under a permanent appointment, the committee "was limited
to the consideration of the time at which that recommendation
should become operative." They asked the president to change her
time of withdrawal to June, 1899, and she consented to do this,
with the provision that she was to be released from her duties
before the end of the year, if her successor were ready to assume
the duties of the office before June, 1899.

After her retirement from Wellesley, Mrs. Irvine made her home in
the south of France, but she returned to America in 1912 to be
present at the inauguration of President Pendleton. And in the
year 1913-1914, after the death of Madame Colin, she performed
a signal service for the college in temporarily assuming the
direction of the Department of French. Through her good offices,
the department was reorganized, but the New England winter had
proved too severe for her after her long sojourn in a milder
climate, and in 1914, Mrs. Irvine returned again to her home in
Southern France, bearing with her the love and gratitude of
Wellesley for her years of efficient and unselfish service.
During the war of 1914-1915, she had charge of the linen room
in the military hospital at Aix-les-Bains.