" Two years before our story opens, the Frenchman
died, and since that time Rose Hill had been unoccupied, but now
it had another proprietor, and early in the summer Mr. Howard
Hastings and lady would take possession of their new home.
Of Mr. Hastings nothing definite was known, except that he was a
man of unbounded wealth and influence--"and a little peculiar
withal," so said Mrs. Leah, the matron, who had come up from New
York to superintend the arrangement of the house, which was fitted
up in a style of elegance far surpassing what most of Dunwood's
inhabitants had seen before, and was for two or three weeks thrown
open to the public. Mrs. Leah, who was a servant in Mr. Hastings's
family and had known her young mistress's husband from childhood,
was inclined to be rather communicative, and when asked to explain
what she meant by Mr. Hastings's peculiarities, replied "Oh, he's
queer every way--and no wonder, with his kind of a mother. Why she
is rich as a Jew, and for all that, she made her only daughter
learn how to do all kinds of work.
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