The duty lay in their way--it seemed to be the nearest to them--and they set about doing it without desire for fame, or any other reward but the approval of their own conscience.
Among prison-visitors, the name of Sarah Martin is much less known than that of Mrs.Fry, although she preceded her in the work.

How she was led to undertake it, furnishes at the same time an illustration of womanly trueheartedness and earnest womanly courage.
Sarah Martin was the daughter of poor parents, and was left an orphan at an early age.

She was brought up by her grandmother, at Caistor, near Yarmouth, and earned her living by going out to families as assistant-dressmaker, at a shilling a day.

In 1819, a woman was tried and sentenced to imprisonment in Yarmouth Gaol, for cruelly beating and illusing her child, and her crime became the talk of the town.

The young dressmaker was much impressed by the report of the trial, and the desire entered her mind of visiting the woman in gaol, and trying to reclaim her.