[1] After some medical training, she and Marie Glibert went to Furreedpore (then part of British India) in October 1882, the first missionaries sent by the newly formed Society, undertaking "zenana work".

[7][8] Four other young women decided to join her (becoming known as the "Five Barley Loaves") in East Bengal, which then became the primary mission field for Australian Baptists.

[3] She later moved to Pubna where there were tensions with other missionaries, particularly as the men, who had arrived later, controlled the finances and movements of the women.

"[1] From 1913, she lived in a thatched, mud-floored village hut among the local people rather than in the typical British Raj style properties of her colleagues.

[1] Arnold retired to Australia in 1930, with the East Bengal Baptist Union taking over her work, but returned to India as a voluntary worker and died in Ataikola on 9 July 1931 after refusing surgery for a malignant growth.