The Understanding Heart — Rosamund Hunt

Social worker, Claire Stanley knew and believed in the power of love, but as a woman she had yet to learn how blind love can sometimes be.

Girl with “Soul”…

Claire Stanley was the youngest and loveliest member of the Department of Social Services, and the only one of its tiny staff of five who so far hadn't been sent out into the field on a case. Confronting her boss, attractive young Commissioner of Welfare, Drew Jordan, she finally got him to admit that he had been “protecting her” … because she was too tender-hearted. “You can't have a pincushion heart in this work,” he said. Drew didn't know that an old personal tragedy was part of the reason for Claire's quick sympathy and compassion for anyone in trouble. But she was to show… and soon…that her vulnerable heart was the most valuable asset…in her work and in choosing the right man to love…

It was a small, compact organization -- this office of the Department of Social Services. Located in the basement of City Hall, under the capable direction of Drew Jordan, Commissioner of Public Welfare, it operated efficiently.

There was first of all, of course, Drew Jordan, the boss; then there was Lillian Meady, in charge of Child Welfare; Sarah Towne, cool, patrician looking, who handled the worst cases for Social Services; and Dorothy Wentworth, in charge of services in Glenridge City Hospital, who usually mailed in her reports.

The fifth member of the department was Claire Stanley, who so far had not been sent out on a case, but who now had decided to screw up her courage and ask Drew why not.

Claire was to find the the very quality that had caused her boss not to send her out -- her quick sympathy and compassion for anyone in trouble--was to prove her most valuable asset in the field. The people that Claire met -- difficult though they were -- could all be handled if love and putting oneself in the other's place were a part of the job.

An understanding heart -- she proved it with the elderly Haskell twin sisters, firmly entrenched in their two-hundred-year-old house; she proved it with Crystal Tremaine, a young girl deserted by her show-business mother; and she proved it with many other. But most of all, she proved it with Drew Jordan.

Hero: Drew Jordan
Heroine: Claire Stanley