It was the annual custom of a tribe of gypsies to pitch their tents in a
green lane near Plashet, on their way to Fairlop Fair. Once, after the
tents were pitched, a child fell ill; the distracted mother applied to
the kind lady at Plashet House for relief. Mrs. Fry acceded to the
request, and not only ministered to the gypsies that season, but every
succeeding year; until she became known and almost worshipped among
them. Romany wanderers and Celtic colonists were alike welcome to her
heart and purse, and vied in praising her.

About this time the Norwich Auxiliary Bible Society was formed, and Mrs.
Fry went down to Earlham to attend the initial meeting. She tells us
there were present the Bishop of Norwich, six clergymen of the
Established Church, and three dissenting ministers, besides several
leading Quakers and gentlemen of the neighborhood. The number included
Mr. Hughes, one of the secretaries, and Dr. Steinkopf, a Lutheran
minister, who, though as one with the work of the Bible Society, could
not speak English. At some of these meetings she felt prompted to speak,
and did so at a social gathering at Earlham Hall, when all present owned
her remarkable influence upon them. These associations also increased
in her that catholicity of spirit which afterwards seemed so prominent.
Some of her brothers and sisters belonged to the Established Church of
England; while in her walks of mercy she was continually co-operating
with members of other sections of Christians. As we have seen, she
worked harmoniously with all: Catholic and Protestant, Churchman and
Dissenter.

On looking at her training for her special form of usefulness we find
that afflictions predominated just when her mind was soaring above the
social and conventional trammels which at one time weighed so much with