She no longer kept at home, but walked abroad.

Her step was quick and strong; she looked on at the tree-choppers, the builders, and the painters, at their nefarious work, no more in helpless grief and indignation, but with an unmistakable expression of triumph.
Presently surveyors appeared in the village, taking exact and careful measurements of the single broad and grassy street which formed the older part of it.

Miss Ludington was closeted with a builder, and engrossed with estimates.

The next year she left Hilton to the mercy of the vandals, and never returned.
But it was to another Hilton that she went.
The fortune she had inherited had enabled her to carry out a design which had been a day-dream with her ever since the transformation of the village had begun.

Among the pieces of property left her was a large farm on Long Island several miles out of the city of Brooklyn.