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This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Esther Wright begins as a clever, self-satisfied schoolgirl who prides herself on respectability while scorning poorer, rougher classmates like Rhoda Morris. At home, her pious talk gives way to selfishness, impatience, and a dislike of duty, especially when she is left to care for her younger siblings while her exhausted mother struggles to hold the family together. When Esther slips away to play music with a friend, she leaves the children neglected, and her brief pleasure outing ends in disaster: Bobbie and Lilla vanish, and the household is thrown into panic and guilt. Against this troubled backdrop, Rhoda emerges as a practical, warm-hearted contrast. In her poor widow’s home, she helps her mother, gathers firewood, and shares the family’s hopes and hardships with her brother Frank. Frank’s dream of a job at a bookseller’s shop collapses when he is rejected for his “character,” deepening the family’s sense of injustice. Rhoda’s kindness soon draws her into the Wrights’ crisis, as she helps find lost Bobbie, only to discover that Lilla is still missing. As the search continues, Rhoda faces her own sacrifice: she is offered work in Rilchester caring for a sick woman’s children, forcing an abrupt separation from Frank and her mother. Their parting reveals their deep bond, their disappointments, and Rhoda’s quiet faith and resilience, while letters, small kindnesses, and mutual support begin to connect the two families through grief, hope, and growing sympathy.