This was no less than a removal to New York. Alice went first, but she soon sent for Phoebe and their younger sister Elmina. In thus setting out for the great city and settling down to earn her living, Alice Cary was no doubt influenced by a rather painful circumstance which had taken place in her life. There had come to their neighborhood, some little time before, a man, her superior in age and education, who had recognized her unusual gifts and attractiveness, and had spent much time with her. She came to love him deeply and sincerely, and it would seem that he was but little less attracted by her. However, his family managed to persuade him that his best interests demanded that he should not marry this country-bred girl, and he returned to his home, leaving Alice to watch and hope for his coming. The gradual relinquishment of her dream and the final conviction that the sort of home life for which she felt herself most fitted was not after all to be hers, led Alice Cary to feel that she must take up some definite work to support herself and to help her sisters. She herself said later, in speaking about the removal to New York, "Ignorance stood me in the stead of courage and of books"--she knew so little about the great city to which she was going that she feared it little. The sisters made up their minds from the first that they would have a home; they had a horror of the boarding-house atmosphere. Their first home was but two, or three rooms, high up in a big building in an unfashionable part of the town. Alice papered rooms, Phoebe painted doors and framed pictures; but the impress of their individuality was on the rooms, and every one who entered them felt their coziness and "hominess." Papers and magazines paid but little for contributions in those days, and it was only by living in the most economical and humble way that they managed to avoid their great horror--debt. But their life was by no means barren, for they became acquainted with many pleasant people, who were always glad and proud to be invited to the little tea parties in the three rooms under the roof. The publication in 1852 of Alice's _Clovernook Papers_ brought to her increasing recognition and new friends. These simple, original little sketches of rural scenery and rural life were just the things which Alice Cary knew best how to write, and they became very popular all over the country. Before 1856 the sisters had removed to the pretty house in Twentieth Street which was their home for the rest of their lives. Alice bought the house and the furnishings; indeed it was she who did most of the planning for the household, and who paid most of the bills. She worked early and late, driven always by the obligations to be met. A biographer says of her: "I have never known any other woman so systematically and persistently industrious as Alice Cary." Phoebe worked indeed, but spasmodically--she waited on her moods.