y Phoebe,
entered the carriage and was driven to Baymouth, where she posted her
two letters in time for the evening mail, and where the next morning she
took the boat for Baltimore, en route for the North. She stopped in
Baltimore only long enough to arrange business with Mr. Brudenell's
solicitors, and then proceeded to New York, whence, at the end of the
same week, she sailed for Liverpool. Thus the beautiful young English
Jewess, who had dropped for a while like some rich exotic flower
transplanted to our wild Maryland woods, returned to her native land,
where, let us hope, she found in an appreciating circle of friends some
consolation for the loss of that domestic happiness that had been so
cruelly torn from her.

We shall meet with Berenice, Countess of Hurstmonceux, again; but it
will be in another sphere, and under other circumstances.

It was in the spring succeeding her departure that the house-agents and
attorneys came down to appraise and sell Brudenell Hall. Since the
improvements bestowed upon the estate by Lady Hurstmonceux, the property
had increased its value, so that a purchaser could not at once be found.
When this fact was communicated to Mr. Brudenell, in London, he wrote
and authorized his agent to let the property to a responsible tenant,
and if possible to hire the plantation negroes to the same party who
should take the house.

All this after a while was successfully accomplished. A gentleman from a
neighboring State took the house, all furnished as it was, and hired all
the servants of the premises.

He came early in June, but who or what he was, or whence he came, none
of the neighbors knew. The arrival of any stranger in a remote country
district is always the occasion of much curiosity, speculation, and
gossip. But when such a one brings the purse of Fortunatus in his
pocket, and takes possession of the finest establishment in the
country--house, furniture, servants, carriages, horses, stock and all,
he becomes the subject of the wildest conjecture.

It does not require long to get comfortably to housekeeping in a
ready-made home; so it was soon understood in the neighborhood that the
strangers were settled in their new residence, and might be supposed to
be ready to receive calls.

But the neighbors, though tormented with curiosity, cautiously held
aloof, and waited until the Sabbath, when they might expect to see the
newcomers, and judge of their appearance and hear their pastor's o