"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.
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