e had concealed the
greater part of his money."

When his host had left the room, Dolph remained for some time lost in
thought. His whole mind was occupied by what he had heard. Vander
Spiegel was his mother's family name; and he recollected to have heard
her speak of this very Killian Vander Spiegel as one of her ancestors.
He had heard her say, too, that her father was Kollian's rightful
heir, only that the old man died without leaving any thing to be
inherited. It now appeared that Heer Antony was likewise a descendant,
and perhaps an heir also, of this poor rich man; and that thus the
Heyligers and the Vander Heydens were remotely connected. "What,"
thought he, "if, after all, this is the interpretation of my dream,
that this is the way I am to make my fortune by this voyage to Albany,
and that I am to find the old man's hidden wealth in the bottom of
that well? But what an odd, round-about mode of communicating the
matter! Why the plague could not the old goblin have told me about the
well at once, without sending me all the way to Albany to hear a story
that was to send me all the way back again?"

These thoughts passed through his mind while he was dressing. He
descended the stairs, full of perplexity, when the bright face of
Marie Vander Heyden suddenly beamed in smiles upon him, and seemed to
give him a clue to the whole mystery. "After all," thought he, "the
old goblin is in the right. If I am to get his wealth, he means that I
shall marry his pretty descendant; thus both branches of the family
will be again united, and the property go on in the proper channel."

No sooner did this idea enter his head, than it carried conviction
with it. He was now all impatience to hurry back and secure the
treasure, which, he did not doubt, lay at the bottom of the well, and
which he feared every moment might be discovered by some other person.
"Who knows," thought he, "but this night-walking old fellow of the
haunted house may be in the habit of haunting every visitor, and may
give a hint to some shrewder fellow than myself, who will take a
shorter cut to the well than by the way of Albany?" He wished a
thousand times that the babbling old ghost was laid in the Red Sea,
and his rambling portrait with him. He was in a perfect fever to
depart. Two or three days elapsed before any opportunity presented for
returning down the river. They were ages to Dolph, notwithstanding
that he was basking in the smiles of the pretty Mari