Worm was born on 29 November 1825 in Hyllested near Randers, the daughter of Theodora Petrine Hjort (1800–81) and Peter Worm (1788–1865), the parish priest who was an ardent, politically minded patriot. He educated Pauline and her two younger sisters while his wife took care of the rectory. When she was only nine, she tried to persuade her uncle, the politician Lauritz la Cour, to have the law changed so that women could vote. In 1838, Worm was sent to the girls school in Randers where she stayed on to be a teacher. From 1847, she worked as a private tutor in Præstø. When Frederick VII came to the throne in 1848, she wrote a patriotic poem of praise for him which was published in the newspaper Fædrelandet, providing evidence of her poetic talents. While in Præstø, she also wrote En Krands af ni Blade (1850), a poetry anthology, and De Fornuftige, a novel which was not published until 1857.
