The ladies bowed and went out, and Alice was alone, tired and hot, and so glad her first term of teaching was over and that she had given satisfaction. Better than all was the fact that she would in a few days have thirty-six dollars of her own. It was the first money she had ever earned, and it seemed like a fortune to her. Sitting down upon one of the hard benches by an open window she began to plan what she should do with it. Give part of it to Aunt Mary to get her a new dress, and with another part buy herself some boots and gloves. Her old ones were so shabby, and she was very fastidious with regard to her hands and feet, if she were only a little country girl, living among the mountains of western Massachusetts, where city fashions did not prevail to a great extent, except as some ambitious factory girl aped them so far as she could. Alice’s father, George Tracy, had been half-brother to Helen’s father, Freeman Tracy, who had inherited his large fortune from his mother. George, who was ten years older than his brother, was a languid, easy-going, handsome man, with no more talent or inclination for work than a child. Twice Freeman, who was very fond of him, had set him up in business, with the result each time of a complete failure. “No use, Free. It isn’t in me to see to anything. Better give me a small allowance, if you want to do anything for such a shiftless good-for-nothing as I am, and let me shirk for myself,” George said to his brother, who took him at his word and gave him not a small, but a liberal allowance, which kept him quite at his ease.