But her decision had already been made.

"I had counted the cost," she said, "and my mind, was made up.

If, whilst imparting truth to others, I became exposed to temporal want, the privations so momentary to an individual would not admit of comparison with following the Lord, in thus administering to others." She now devoted six or seven hours every day to the prisoners, converting what would otherwise have been a scene of dissolute idleness into a hive of orderly industry.
Newly-admitted prisoners were sometimes refractory, but her persistent gentleness eventually won their respect and co-operation.

Men old in years and crime, pert London pickpockets, depraved boys and dissolute sailors, profligate women, smugglers, poachers, and the promiscuous horde of criminals which usually fill the gaol of a seaport and county town, all submitted to the benign influence of this good woman; and under her eyes they might be seen, for the first time in their lives, striving to hold a pen, or to master the characters in a penny primer.
She entered into their confidences--watched, wept, prayed, and felt for all by turns.

She strengthened their good resolutions, cheered the hopeless and despairing, and endeavoured to put all, and hold all, in the right road of amendment.
For more than twenty years this good and truehearted woman pursued her noble course, with little encouragement, and not much help; almost her only means of subsistence consisting in an annual income of ten or twelve pounds left by her grandmother, eked out by her little earnings at dressmaking.