The thing people noticed first about Emily was her face and the brightness that shone out of it. A glad face, Sep McGilby always thought. And at sixteen, Emily had a lot to be glad about. She loved her job as maid-of-all-work to the McGilbys, and the only cloud on her horizon was her anxiety about her delicate younger sister, Lucy.

          But when the invalid Mrs McGilby died, and Sep was killed in an accident soon after, Emily and Lucy were forced to leave South Shields to look for work, and they soon found themselves in very different surroundings.

          The household of Croft Dene house, where Lawrence Birch ruled as master, was a strange one, and as Emily became more deeply involved with the family’s affairs, she grew rapidly from girl to woman, needing all her strength of will and character to get her through. And whatever happened, she clung grimly to a scrap of philosophy that had become her motto: 'Never say die!’