Don't blush, Rosa, nor turn away; and even if I were making you a declaration of love, alas! poor dear, it would be of no more consequence.

Down there in the yard, there is an instrument of steel, which in sixty minutes will put an end to my boldness.

Well, Rosa, I loved flowers dearly, and I have found, or at least I believe so, the secret of the great black tulip, which it has been considered impossible to grow, and for which, as you know, or may not know, a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.

These hundred thousand guilders--and Heaven knows I do not regret them--these hundred thousand guilders I have here in this paper, for they are won by the three bulbs wrapped up in it, which you may take, Rosa, as I make you a present of them." "Mynheer Cornelius!" "Yes, yes, Rosa, you may take them; you are not wronging any one, my child.

I am alone in this world; my parents are dead; I never had a sister or a brother.