Archie offers to drive Barbara over to stay with her father for a rest. The two men nurse her back to strength. Archie is tender and solicitous towards her and the pull between his demands and those of her own life force her to come to a difficult decision.

Barbara has gone to work for a highly-successful self-educated inventor and his family of hangers-on in a remote part of Suffolk. Fond as she is of them, she is driven to the point of exhaustion by the helplessness of the household. Then, on her day off in Ipswich, she meets someone...

The two little adopted boys are settling down under Barbara's care. But her relationship with the now pregnant Adela remains uneasy.

Barbara goes for an interview in a house where it appears there are no children. The mystery is explained when she learns that her prospective employers have decided to adopt two slum children as ' an experiment ', Deeply suspicious, Barbara nevertheless feels this is a challenge she cannot let pass.

Barbara accepts a job in isolated Thorpeness with two children who have just returned from India without their parents. Their mother was once a famous music-hall star. But what has happened to her since? It seems that no one is very keen for Barbara to know.

Rain ... all day, every day. The children trapped indoors become quarrelsome. Barbara's solution is simple, if eccentric. But dealing with Miss Sullivan, the old-fashioned governess, is not so easy.

For her third job, Barbara is hired on the recommendation of a Nanny Agency. Her employer, Mrs Sackville , who lives in Bath, is a ' modern woman' with a career, much too busy to come to London to interview Barbara. And, as Barbara discovers, Mr Sackville does not approve of his wife having a career.

With her first job having come to an abrupt end, Barbara goes to work for a penniless Anglo-Irish couple in London. Despite this she finds herself among the more snobbish ranks of 1930s London nannydom, receiving the ultimate accolade of an invitation to tea with the acknowledged ' Queen of the London Nannies'.

Spring 1932. After a broken marriage Nurse Gray has completed her college training and is ready to embark on her first job.