old plantation negroes--ancient servants who had
lived for generations on the premises.

While he was at this work he instituted cautious inquiries about "one of
the tenants, Hannah Worth, the weaver, who lived at Hill hut, with her
nephew"; and he learned that Hannah was prosperously married to Reuben
Gray and had left the neighborhood with her nephew, who had received a
good education from Mr. Middleton's family school. Brudenell
subsequently received a letter from Mr. Middleton himself, recommending
to his favorable notice "a young man named Ishmael Worth, living on the
Brudenell estates."

But as the youth had left the neighborhood with his relatives, and as
Mr. Brudenell really hoped that he was well provided for by the large
sum of money for which he had given Hannah a check on the day of his
departure, and as he was overwhelmed with business cares, and lastly, as
he dreaded rather than desired a meeting with his unknown son, he
deferred seeking him out.

When Brudenell Hall was entirely dismantled, and all the furniture of
the house, the stock of the farm, and the negroes of the plantation, and
all the land except a few acres immediately around the house had been
sold, and the purchase money realized, he returned to Paris, settled his
mother's debts, and warning her that they had now barely sufficient to
support them in moderate comfort, entreated her to return and live
quietly at Brudenell Hall.

But no! "If they were poor, so much the more reason why the girls should
marry rich," argued Mrs. Brudenell; and instead of retrenching her
expenses, she merely changed the scene of her operations from Paris to
London, forgetting the fact everyone else remembered, that her "girls,"
though still handsome, because well preserved, were now mature women of
thirty-two and thirty-five. Herman promised to give them the whole
proceeds of his property, reserving to himself barely enough to live on
in the most economical manner. And he let Brudenell Hall once more, and
took up his abode at a cheap watering-place on the continent, where he
remained for years, passing his time in reading, fishing, boating, and
other idle seaside pastimes, until he was startled from his repose by a
letter from his mother--a letter full of anguish, telling him that her
younger daughter, Eleanor, had fled from home in company with a certain
Captain Dugald, and that she had traced them to Liverpool, whence they
had sailed for New Tork, and entreate