Returning from her stint at the London Hospital, Jenny needs all her skill as a midwife when she and Sister Evangelina assist at the birth of the Roberts' baby, who is born with spina bifida. The parents, Doug and Ruby, struggle to understand and accept their son's life-limiting condition. Jenny has never delivered a disabled child and she too struggles to accept the implications the illness could have for the child's future - abandonment and institutionalisation. Nonnatus House, meanwhile, plays host to an acquaintance of Chummy's - the Reverend Applebee-Thornton, an eccentric cleric who befriends Jane.