IN WHICH MR.

BELCHER VISITS NEW YORK, AND BECOMES THE PROPRIETOR OF "PALGRAVE'S FOLLY." The shadow of a mystery hung over Sevenoaks for many months.

Handbills advertising the fugitives were posted in all directions throughout the country, but nothing came of them but rumors.

The newspapers, far and near, told the story, but it resulted in nothing save such an airing of the Sevenoaks poor-house, and the county establishment connected with the same, that Tom Buffum, who had lived for several years on the border-land of apoplexy, passed suddenly over, and went so far that he never returned to meet the official inquiry into his administration.

The Augean stables were cleansed by the Hercules of public opinion; and with the satisfied conscience and restored self-complacency procured by this act, the people at last settled down upon the conviction that Benedict and his boy had shared the fate of old Tilden--that they had lost themselves in the distant forest, and met their death alike beyond help and discovery.
Mr.Belcher found himself without influence in the adjustment of the new administration.