Ezekiel rose from his chair, and slowly lighted a wax candle which stood upon the table. Gathering the dark wrapper, lined with scarlet, about his tall form which seemed bent with age, he took the silver candlestick in his right hand, and swept aside a curtain which concealed the shelves behind his chair. A narrow doorway was disclosed. "Will you step this way, for a few moments, sir?" he said, pointing to the doorway, as he held the light above his head, thus throwing the shadow of the green shade completely over his face. Gaspar Manuel without a word, rose and followed him. They entered a room or rather vault, resembling in the general features the one which they had left. It was racked and shelved; the floor was brick and the shelves groaned under the weight of carefully arranged papers. "This room or vault, without windows as you see, and rendered secure, beyond a doubt, from all danger of robbery or of fire, is one of seven," said Ezekiel. "In this room are kept all title deeds and papers, which relate to the THOUSAND ACRES in Pennsylvania." "The Thousand acres in Pennsylvania!" echoed Gaspar, "surely all these documents and papers, do not relate to that tract, which Van Huyden originally purchased for one thousand dollars?" "Twenty-one years ago, they could have been purchased for a thousand dollars," answered Ezekiel: "twenty-one years, to a country like this, is the same as five hundred to Europe. Those lands could not now be purchased for twenty millions." "Twenty millions!" "They comprise inexhaustible mines of coal and iron--the richest in the state," answered Ezekiel, quietly, and drawing a curtain, he led the way into a second vault. "Here," he said, holding the light above his head, so that its rays fell full upon the pallid face of Gaspar, while his own was buried in shadow; "here are kept all papers and title-deeds, which relate to the lands in the western country--lands purchased for fifty thousand dollars, at a time when Ohio was a thinly settled colony and all the region further west a wilderness--but lands which now are distributed through five states, and which, dotted with villages, rich in mines and tenanted by thousands, return an annual rent of,----" He paused. "Of I do not care to say how many dollars. Enough, perhaps, to buy a German prince or two. This way, sir." Passing through a narrow doorway, they entered a third vault, arched and shelved like the other. "This place is devoted to the Van Huyden mansion," said Ezekiel, pointing to the well-filled shelves. "It was worth $150,000 twenty-one years ago, but now a flourishing town has sprung up in the center of its lands; mills and manufactories arise in its valleys; a population of five thousand souls exists, where twenty-one years ago there were not two hundred souls, all told. And these five thousand are laboring night and day, not so much for themselves as to increase the wealth of the Van Huyden estate."