ain, and no vestige of the door could
be seen. Nay, so perfectly unshaken did all appear that I remember
remarking a cobweb that stretched from the frame of a picture, and
hung over the spot where the door seemed to be; and there," cried she,
starting up,--"there, Mr. Linton, as I live, there is the cobweb!"

"Which, without doubt, you observed yesterday," said Linton, "and in
your sleep the vision of our neglect was renewed."

"No, no; I never saw it before. I am confident that I never noticed it
yesterday. I am sorry I revealed my dream to you," said she, perceiving
that, in spite of all his tact, incredulity had lent a look of pitying
compassion to his features.

"On the contrary, I beg of you to believe in all my interest for your
recital; nay, I'll prove it too."

"How so?" said she, eagerly.

"Simply enough. I 'll give orders at once to have a door made here, and
then we shall see if the view you describe of the crypt and the chapel
can be seen from this point."

"Why don't you add, and of the figure with the casket, too?" said she,
smiling; "for I see you regard them all as alike veracious."

"In any case," cried Linton, "if he lay down the treasure--and treasure
it must be--here in the doorway, I 'll take care that the walls do not
swallow it up again; we shall be able to find it in the morning."

"And will you really have this done?"

"I 'll give the orders this very day."

"I must not be so silly," said she, after a pause; "the whole is too
absurd. No, Mr. Linton, do not, I beg of you, do not take any notice of
my folly."

"At all events," said Linton, "your dream is a most happy inspiration;
a door here will be a great improvement, and if the vista takes in the
chapel, so much the better. Remember, too," added he, in a lower and
more feeling voice,--"remember what I have told you so often, that
whatever we do here has, so to say, no other reward than the pleasure it
gives me the doing. Our great patron has about as much gratefulness
in his composition as taste. He will neither feel thankful for our
exertions, nor sensible of their success, and is just as likely to
desecrate yon Ritter-Saal, by making it his smoking-room."

"If I thought so," said she, proudly, and then stopped suddenly. "But
how can it concern me? I have only to wonder how you can accept of an
intimacy so distasteful."

This, in its very abruptness, was a home-thrust; and so much did Linton
feel it that he reddened, at first w