She had two brothers, younger than herself, bright, promising boys whom she was trying to help through college.

The three were orphans, without means; and Wilma was working hard, summer and winter, at anything and everything that offered profit, in an effort to give those boys a liberal education; besides teaching school, she went round the countryside in all weathers selling books, maps and sewing machines.

Her devotion to those brothers was of course splendid, yet I now think that Wilma, temperamental and overworked, had let it become a kind of monomania with her.
A few days after she came to board at the old Squire's--all the school-teachers boarded there--Addison said to me that he wondered what that girl had on her mind.
As the summer passed, Wilma Emmons came to know our affairs at the old farm very well, and of course heard about Jim and his bank book.

Jim, in fact, had taken one of his playdays soon after she came; and grandmother asked Wilma to lock the book up in the drawer of her desk at the schoolhouse for a few days.
It was quite like Jim Doane's impulsive nature, already somewhat unbalanced by intoxicants, to be greatly attracted to the reserved Miss Emmons.

Out by the garden gate one morning he rather foolishly made his admiration known to her.