 Feeling abandoned and alone after Winifred leaves her to marry Uncle Henry, and Anton goes off to fight in the Second Boer War in South Africa, Ursula decides to restart her life by becoming a school teacher.After graduation from high school, Ursula moves to London where she takes a job as a schoolmarm at a poor elementary school in the East End where she becomes quickly appalled by the lack of discipline and hygiene among the impoverished children she is forced to teach (many of whom are illiterate child laborers).She also fends off sexual advances by the lecherous headmaster of the school, who uses physical discipline to settle unruly students.