e, and daily
getting more and more enamoured.

At length the very sloop from which he had been knocked overboard,
prepared to make sail. Dolph made an awkward apology to his host for
his sudden departure. Antony Vander Heyden was sorely astonished. He
had concerted half-a-dozen excursions into the wilderness; and his
Indians were actually preparing for a grand expedition to one of the
lakes. He took Dolph aside, and exerted his eloquence to get him to
abandon all thoughts of business, and to remain with him--but in vain;
and he at length gave up the attempt, observing, "that it was a
thousand pities so fine a young man should throw himself away." Heer
Antony, however, gave him a hearty shake by the hand at parting, with
a favourite fowling-piece, and an invitation to come to his house
whenever he revisited Albany. The pretty little Marie said nothing;
but as he gave her a farewell kiss, her dimpled cheek turned pale, and
a tear stood in her eye.

Dolph sprang lightly on board of the vessel. They hoisted sail; the
wind was fair; they soon lost sight of Albany, and its green hills,
and embowered islands. They were wafted gayly past the Kaatskill
mountains, whose fairy heights were bright and cloudless. They passed
prosperously through the highlands, without any molestation from the
Dunderberg goblin and his crew; they swept on across Haverstraw Bay,
and by Croton Point, and through the Tappaan Zee, and under the
Palisadoes, until, in the afternoon of the third day, they saw the
promontory of Hoboken, hanging like a cloud in the air; and, shortly
after, the roofs of the Manhattoes rising out of the water.

Dolph's first care was to repair to his mother's house; for he was
continually goaded by the idea of the uneasiness she must experience
on his account. He was puzzling his brains, as he went along, to think
how he should account for his absence, without betraying the secrets
of the haunted house. In the midst of these cogitations, he entered
the street in which his mother's house was situated, when he was
thunderstruck at beholding it a heap of ruins.

There had evidently been a great fire, which had destroyed several
large houses, and the humble dwelling of poor Dame Heyliger had been
involved in the conflagration. The walls were not so completely
destroyed but that Dolph could distinguish some traces of the scene of
his childhood. The fire-place, about which he had often played, still
remained, ornamented with Dut