ob will
force the door of my chamber."

"Oh! then it is with you in your bedroom?" said Cornelius, somewhat
relieved. "But in what soil? in what vessel? You don't let it grow, I
hope, in water like those good ladies of Haarlem and Dort, who imagine
that water could replace the earth?"

"You may make yourself comfortable on that score," said Rosa, smiling;
"your bulb is not growing in water."

"I breathe again."

"It is in a good, sound stone pot, just about the size of the jug in
which you had planted yours. The soil is composed of three parts of
common mould, taken from the best spot of the garden, and one of the
sweepings of the road. I have heard you and that detestable Jacob,
as you call him, so often talk about what is the soil best fitted
for growing tulips, that I know it as well as the first gardener of
Haarlem."

"And now what is the aspect, Rosa?"

"At present it has the sun all day long,--that is to say when the sun
shines. But when it once peeps out of the ground, I shall do as you have
done here, dear Mynheer Cornelius: I shall put it out of my window on
the eastern side from eight in the morning until eleven and in my window
towards the west from three to five in the afternoon."

"That's it! that's it!" cried Cornelius; "and you are a perfect
gardener, my pretty Rosa. But I am afraid the nursing of my tulip will
take up all your time."

"Yes, it will," said Rosa; "but never mind. Your tulip is my daughter.
I shall devote to it the same time as I should to a child of mine, if I
were a mother. Only by becoming its mother," Rosa added, smilingly, "can
I cease to be its rival."

"My kind and pretty Rosa!" muttered Cornelius casting on her a glance in
which there was much more of the lover than of the gardener, and which
afforded Rosa some consolation.

Then, after a silence of some moments, during which Cornelius had
grasped through the openings of the grating for the receding hand of
Rosa, he said,--

"Do you mean to say that the bulb has now been in the ground for six
days?"

"Yes, six days, Mynheer Cornelius," she answered.

"And it does not yet show leaf?"

"No, but I think it will to-morrow."

"Well, then, to-morrow you will bring me news about it, and about
yourself, won't you, Rosa? I care very much for the daughter, as you
called it just now, but I care even much more for the mother."

"To-morrow?" said Rosa, looking at Cornelius askance. "I don't know
whether I shall be able to