ind you too much."

"Unfortunately, it does not bind me more than I am bound; but it binds
you, Rosa, you."

"To what?"

"First of all, not to marry."

She smiled.

"That's your way," she said; "you are tyrants all of you. You worship a
certain beauty, you think of nothing but her. Then you are condemned to
death, and whilst walking to the scaffold, you devote to her your last
sigh; and now you expect poor me to sacrifice to you all my dreams and
my happiness."

"But who is the beauty you are talking of, Rosa?" said Cornelius, trying
in vain to remember a woman to whom Rosa might possibly be alluding.

"The dark beauty with a slender waist, small feet, and a noble head; in
short, I am speaking of your flower."

Cornelius smiled.

"That is an imaginary lady love, at all events; whereas, without
counting that amorous Jacob, you by your own account are surrounded with
all sorts of swains eager to make love to you. Do you remember Rosa,
what you told me of the students, officers, and clerks of the Hague? Are
there no clerks, officers, or students at Loewestein?"

"Indeed there are, and lots of them."

"Who write letters?"

"They do write."

"And now, as you know how to read----"

Here Cornelius heaved a sigh at the thought, that, poor captive as he
was, to him alone Rosa owed the faculty of reading the love-letters
which she received.

"As to that," said Rosa, "I think that in reading the notes addressed to
me, and passing the different swains in review who send them to me, I am
only following your instructions."

"How so? My instructions?"

"Indeed, your instructions, sir," said Rosa, sighing in her turn; "have
you forgotten the will written by your hand on the Bible of Cornelius de
Witt? I have not forgotten it; for now, as I know how to read, I read it
every day over and over again. In that will you bid me to love and marry
a handsome young man of twenty-six or eight years. I am on the look-out
for that young man, and as the whole of my day is taken up with your
tulip, you must needs leave me the evenings to find him."

"But, Rosa, the will was made in the expectation of death, and, thanks
to Heaven, I am still alive."

"Well, then, I shall not be after the handsome young man, and I shall
come to see you."

"That's it, Rosa, come! come!"

"Under one condition."

"Granted beforehand!"

"That the black tulip shall not be mentioned for the next three days."

"It shall never be mentioned any