Next she sent for Grainger, the overseer, and having given him the same information, and put a similar sum of money in his hands for distribution among the negroes, she dismissed both the housekeeper and the overseer.  Then she enclosed a note for a large amount in a letter addressed to the pastor of the parish, with a request that he would appropriate it for the relief of the suffering poor in that neighborhood.  Finally, having completed all her preparations, she took a cup of tea, bade farewell to her dependents, and, attended by 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 opinion of them.