?"

"What?"

"Will you accept the proposition of my father?"

"Which proposition?"

"Did not he offer to you tulip bulbs by hundreds?"

"Indeed he did."

"Accept two or three, and, along with them, you may grow the third
sucker."

"Yes, that would do very well," said Cornelius, knitting his brow; "if
your father were alone, but there is that Master Jacob, who watches all
our ways."

"Well, that is true; but only think! you are depriving yourself, as I
can easily see, of a very great pleasure."

She pronounced these words with a smile, which was not altogether
without a tinge of irony.

Cornelius reflected for a moment; he evidently was struggling against
some vehement desire.

"No!" he cried at last, with the stoicism of a Roman of old, "it would
be a weakness, it would be a folly, it would be a meanness! If I thus
give up the only and last resource which we possess to the uncertain
chances of the bad passions of anger and envy, I should never deserve to
be forgiven. No, Rosa, no; to-morrow we shall come to a conclusion as to
the spot to be chosen for your tulip; you will plant it according to my
instructions; and as to the third sucker,"--Cornelius here heaved a deep
sigh,--"watch over it as a miser over his first or last piece of gold;
as the mother over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood
in his veins; watch over it, Rosa! Some voice within me tells me that it
will be our saving, that it will be a source of good to us."

"Be easy, Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, with a sweet mixture of
melancholy and gravity, "be easy; your wishes are commands to me."

"And even," continued Van Baerle, warming more and more with his
subject, "if you should perceive that your steps are watched, and
that your speech has excited the suspicion of your father and of that
detestable Master Jacob,--well, Rosa, don't hesitate for one moment to
sacrifice me, who am only still living through you,--me, who have no one
in the world but you; sacrifice me,--don't come to see me any more."

Rosa felt her heart sink within her, and her eyes were filling with
tears.

"Alas!" she said.

"What is it?" asked Cornelius.

"I see one thing."

"What do you see?"

"I see," said she, bursting out in sobs, "I see that you love your
tulips with such love as to have no more room in your heart left for
other affections."

Saying this, she fled.

Cornelius, after this, passed one of the worst nights he ever had in his