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The surprise and indignation of Rudolph Groesbeck
at finding himself so strangely divested of his expected
patrimony, were not slight, and for a while he had
entertained the illusive hope that his brother would
rectify so apparent an injustice. But it soon became
evident that Egbert contemplated no such unnecessary
generosity. With the vanity of a little mind, he exulted
over a brother whose superiority he had ever
been compelled secretly to acknowledge; though it
was rather Rudolph's elegance of person, and a certain
intuitive grace of manner, which awakened his
envy, than the advantages, less appreciable to him, of
an enlarged mind, and a good education. Rudolph
was tall and well formed, and his face, radiant with
intellectual light, possessed beauty of a higher order
than any which mere symmetry of features can impart.
Possessed of a scanty income, he found himself restricted
to a quiet and obscure life, and subject, moreover,
to the not infrequent taunts of Egbert, and his
roystering companions, as a tame and spiritless fellow,
destined to mope for a life-time among musty books.

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And such, at times, he fancied himself to be, secluded,
owl-like, from the world, shutting his eyes to the
daylight of the Present, and groping in the dim night
of the Past. His owlship, however, was destined to
be disturbed by the flittings of a butterfly. He met
the beautiful Effie—each unknown to the other—
rendered her some trifling courtesy, and returned to
his books to find her sunny features upon every page,
and to hear the melody of that one remembered tone
outsounding all the grave voices of Antiquity. The
transforming power of Love has been the theme of
all ages; and that it wrought its usual marvels upon
Rudolph need not be doubted. His well-thumbed
books were allowed a long respite upon their shelves,
and he sought in frequent walks to encounter once
more his unknown charmer. His poetic fancy had
invested the very spot in which they had met, with
unwonted beauty, and its echoes seemed still vocal
with the harmonies of her voice. He forgot his own
poverty; he forgot, indeed, that there were such
things as Wealth and Want. A rich and exhaustless
mine of bliss seemed opened in his heart, which would
prove triumphant over the ills of life, and independent
of the vicissitudes of Time.

That Rudolph did not recognize the daughter of his
father's chosen friend, whom as a child he had intimately
known, is seemingly a matter of surprise. But

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Time, good old fellow, to give him his due, is not perpetually
wielding his scythe to depopulate nations,
or stooping with hammer and chisel at the base of
mighty edifices, or changing the channels of rivers,
or upbuilding islands in mid-ocean. For he had
found leisure, during Rudolph's retirement, to develope
so many beauties and graces in the gentle Effie, as to
bury beneath their profusion her former self. So
sinks the vase from view, concealed by bending flowers.
But it was no pleasure to the student to learn
that his fair unknown was the daughter of the wealthy
Evert. For a while, indeed, he wilfully closed his eyes
to the disparity of fortune between them, and meeting
her again and again, by a design which seemed like
accident, he contrived to fasten more firmly the rosy
fetters which enthralled him. Innocent of every art,
and utterly unconscious of Rudolph's sentiments, Effie's
genuine good nature and childish hilarity of spirits
were unchecked in his presence by the reserve which
might otherwise have detracted from her charms; and
the lover soon found himself in the plight of the dazzled
insect, which, unwarned by the singeing of its
wings, continues to tempt Fate, until it rushes bodily
into the flame. But the reflection which is not allowed
to precede, is sure to follow our imprudent acts. Rudolph's
dream of bliss was as brief as it was bright;

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for dismay seized upon his heart as he at length began
to contemplate the gulf that intervened between himself
and Effie.

The cold stage of his disease set in, and he flew to
his books for relief. Homer paraded his Helens and
Penelopes before him, and hinted at all the ruin they
had wrought; Virgil dwelt complacently upon the
charms of the magnificent Dido; Horace cracked a
few unfeeling jokes on the subject of Love in general;
Ovid offered to instruct him in the art; and Seneca,
the grave old wag, buried to his chin in gold, descanted
sagely upon the blessings of Poverty. Miserable
comforters are ye all, thought the hapless Rudolph,
as turning his back upon his study, he strolled
into the fields. His sudden despair however had not
been caused, or scarcely enhanced, by the existing engagement
between Egbert and Effie, for to that event,
while it remained unratified by any personal contract,
he attached no manner of importance. It was the grim
spectre of Poverty, more formidable than the fabled
genii of the East, which stood scowling between him
and the bright Paradise of his hopes. Musing painfully
upon his adverse fortunes, he sauntered to the
river, and arranging the sails of a small boat which
he kept for pleasure excursions, embarked upon the
glassy tide. It was a warm autumnal day, and the
whole face of Nature was wrapt in smiles. The

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sky was bright and blue above him, and its image
bright and blue below, and his white-winged bark
seemed suspended in mid-ether, floating cloud-like and
buoyantly along. The sportive sea-gulls were flitting
around him, now darting into the stream, and now
flashing the sunlight from their dripping wings, as they
wheeled rapidly away. The trill of many birds came
faintly from the shore; the distant lowing of cattle
was heard, and the far-off voice of Chanticleer, the
challenge and reply, at once disturbed and illustrated
the silence of the scene. Rudolph's boat seemed instinctively
to shape its course in the direction of the
Knickerbocker homestead, which stood on a slight
eminence, that sloped by a gentle declivity to the river.
At the bottom of the garden, and on the very margin
of the stream, was a latticed summer-house, clothed
with flowering vines, in which he loved to fancy the
beautiful Effie, lulled to repose by the silvery voice of
the tiny billows at her feet. Loosening his snowy
sails opposite this sacred retreat, he loitered midway
of the stream, forgetting for a while his grief, and
wrapt in those bright dreams of the imagination,
whose prismatic hues so often lend their radiance to
the young and ingenuous mind. The heavily laden
sloop, sunk to her gunwale in the flood, passed him
unheeded, and the helmsman's merry troll, and the
jarring voices of the crew, scarce sounded in his ears.

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Unheard was the shout of triumph which came ever
and anon from the fisherman's shallop, anchored in
the distance, and the louder detonation of the sportsman's
gun, echoing among the adjacent forests, disturbed
not his reverie. His mind was revelling in Elysian
fields, for Hope, like the coral architect of the sea,
was rearing her gorgeous structures beneath the very
billows of Despair. Thus feeding the fire that consumed
him, the hapless Rudolph gave way to the impulses
of a generous and guileless heart. The day waned,
and he retired to his lonely home, depressed by the
re-action of his thoughts, his devotion and his vigils
unrewarded, even so much as by the fluttering of a
scarf in the breeze. The time now spoken of was
just that period when Egbert, after a succession of
heavy losses at the gaming table, began to grow certain
of his own affection for the beautiful heiress.
His marked addresses to Effie soon became generally
known, and Rudolph, smitten to the heart with his
own adverse fate, resolved to abandon a home darkened
by so many griefs. In the settlement about Fort
Orange, or as it was called by the English, Fort Albany,
resided a brother of the deceased Wilhelmus,
whose often urged entreaties for a visit from Rudolph,
the latter now resolved to accept. The bustle of preparation
for so extended a journey was at once a relief
to his mind, and the many sage admonitions

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which he received as to the dangers of the undertaking
convinced him that he was not in reality as friendless
as he had supposed. A sloop was preparing to
sail for the fort, for the transmission of some munitions
of war, and other government stores, to the garrisons
at that settlement and at Schenectady. Its
departure was indeed already publicly announced by
the city post; not the Evening or Morning Post, gentle
reader, but a day and night post, which stood patiently
in front of the government house, plastered all
over with public notices, in all imaginable varieties of
writing. On board this vessel Rudolph embarked.
The voyage was unusually long. There were head
winds, and side winds, and no winds, to baffle the wary
skipper, and there were stoppings at night, and safe
anchorings to be found, and watchings for the day.
Formal soundings too were to be made, even where
the bottom was visible through the shallow and pellucid
wave; and the coast was to be examined for
future conquest; and the charcoal chart of Captain
Van Dam was to be corrected by striking out three
cannibal islands erroneously set down on a former
voyage, and by inserting a volcanic mountain among
the Highlands, which, like the pipe of its sage discoverer,
is supposed to have long since burnt out. A
week indeed elapsed before they had doubled St. Anthony's
Nose, and another ere the six frowning guns of

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Fort Albany were visible. It mattered little, however,
to Rudolph. He had his books and his meerschaum,
and in the black-letter page of the one, and from the
fragrant wreaths of the other, gleamed the radiant
features which were at once the cause and the solace
of his grief.

It was during his sojourn in these hyperborean
regions that the important events recorded in the
preceding chapters had occurred, of which no intelligence
had yet crossed that mighty interval which
stretched between the city of New York and the far
northern outpost of Albany.

Egbert's wooing, meanwhile, had for a time given
token of success, for Effie had unfortunately been
accustomed to regard the alliance as a matter of
duty. Her heart indeed was unwon, but then she
knew nothing of the wealth of affection which lay
dormant within it.

But the sudden calamity which had overwhelmed
the house of the Knickerbockers, singularly enough,
put a new aspect upon the suitor's zeal. The culminating
point of his love seemed suddenly to be
past, for the silvery voice of Effie, and her golden
locks, like the bills of a broken bank, no longer represented
the chink of the genuine coin. He had manifested
much alarm at the first intimation of Mr.
Knickerbocker's troubles, and for a while took an

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active part in attempting to defeat the machinations
of Sharp. He esteemed himself, however, most fortunate
in not having yet passed the Rubicon of proposal
and acceptance, and resolved, while the peril
impended, to maintain a middle ground between
courtship and estrangement, from which it would be
equally easy to advance or retreat; thus imitating
the tactics of some renowned generals, whose panegyrists
have loudly lauded their discretion for want
of something else to laud. Miss Sharp, in the meantime,
did not cease to ply her artillery with great
effect, whenever the enemy came within the range of
her charms. She affected much commiseration for
the Knickerbockers, and regretted that the government
should have employed her father in so unpleasant
a duty as that of prosecuting its claims against
him. She herself could bear witness to the sleepless
nights which it had occasioned poor papa, and then
her own feelings, to say nothing of Benhadad's, had
been lacerated to an extent that it was really quite
painful to mention. Such was the substance of Miss
Euphemia's sentiments as detailed to Egbert, with as
much of a languishing air as a pair of small, black,
snaky eyes, and a mouth with a decidedly snap-dragonish
expression, would admit of. But her fears and
suspense were not of very long continuance, for the
news from abroad of the ultimate rejection of Evert's

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claims, was speedily followed by another marked
change in the deportment of Egbert. His attentions
to Effie grew “small by degrees and beautifully
less,” and within a few weeks were altogether discontinued.

Poor old Evert, in all his troubles, had thought less
of himself than of his children, and he consoled himself
often by reflecting how well his darling Effie was
provided for, and by hoping that Egbert, in the plenitude
of his wealth and kindness, might possibly lend
a helping hand also to his heedless son. It was with
bitter grief and indignation, therefore, that he had discovered
the perfidy of the heartless youth, nor would
he indeed give any credence to the signs of his desertion
until compelled so to do. Far different, however,
were Effie's feelings. A sense of relief, and of freedom
from some hidden danger, gave new bloom to
her face and fresh buoyancy to her steps. She
grieved indeed for her father's sorrow, and sought
ever to console him by the assurance that they would
still do well enough.

“Remember,” she would say, as she brushed the
thin locks from his temples—“Remember, papa, what
Dominie Vischer told us on Sunday, about blessings
in disguise.”

The image of the Dominie's reverend head, just
visible above the huge high pulpit, and threatened

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with momentary demolition by the massive cone,
which, like the sword of Damocles, hung perpetually
above it, rose for a moment in Evert's mind.

“Yes—yes, my child, I remember it well,” he replied.
“Heaven knows I thought of thee, when he
spoke of the wind being tempered to the shorn lamb—
for thou art a lamb, my Effie, and thy fold will soon
be broken up.”

“We belong to one fold and one Shepherd, papa,”
said Effie, smiling cheerfully; and the old man, imprinting
a kiss upon the cheek of his child, tottered
weeping from the room.

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