It was work she had been used to at Wildtree, and to which she had already had yearnings in London, though Mrs Rimbolt had opposed it.
"Mind?
Not a bit," said her father, when she broached the subject to him, "as long as you don't get small-pox or get into mischief.

I should like to be a denizen of a slum myself, for the pleasure of getting a visit from you." And so the girl began her work of charity, spending generally an hour a day, under the direction of her friend, in some of the closely packed alleys near.

As she made a point of being home always to welcome her father in the afternoon, her visits were generally paid early in the day, when the men would be away at work and when the chief claimants on her help and pity would be the poor women and children left behind, with sometimes a sick or crippled man unable to help himself.

It was often sad, often depressing work.

But the brave girl with a heart full of love faced it gladly, and felt herself the happier for it day by day.
It was on an afternoon shortly after this new work had been begun that she was overtaken by a sudden October squall as she was hurrying back through Regent's Park towards home.