One rainy day - Joan Jonker

Poppy Meadows has a face of rare beauty. She lives with her widowed mother and her brother and, like any other nineteen-year-old, enjoys life. And, oh, how she loves to dance! The only blot on her happiness is her dreadful boss in the office where she works. He has a roving eye for a pretty girl and roving hands, so she vows to find another job and enrols on a shorthand course at night school. One rainy day, Poppy is asked to deliver a letter to an office in Castle Street. Busy fastening her raincoat, she fails to notice two people bounding down the steps of an office block and when she's knocked to the ground the couple are full of apologies. Poppy brushes aside the young man's offer to replace her ruined raincoat, for his expensive clothes and the way he speaks tell her he is a toff and her pride comes to the fore. She walks away with her head held high leaving the couple to stare after her. 'I wish she'd let me help,' Andrew Wilkie-Brook tells his sister Charlotte. 'Her coat is ruined and it is all my fault. But she wouldn't listen to me.' Someone is listening, however, and decides to take a hand. Her name is Fate.