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 come to-morrow." "Good heavens!" said Cornelius, "why can't you come to-morrow ?" "Mynheer Cornelius, I have lots of things to do." "And I have only one," muttered Cornelius.
"Yes," said Rosa, "to love your tulip." "To love you, Rosa." Rosa shook her head, after which followed a pause.
"Well,"-- Cornelius at last broke the silence,--"well, Rosa, everything changes in the realm of nature; the flowers of spring are succeeded by other flowers; and the bees, which so tenderly caressed the violets and the wall-flowers, will flutter with just as much love about the honey-suckles, the rose, the jessamine, and the carnation." "What does all this mean ?" asked Rosa.
"You have abandoned me, Miss Rosa, to seek your pleasure elsewhere.
You have done well, and I will not complain.

What claim have I to your fidelity ?" "My fidelity!" Rosa exclaimed, with her eyes full of tears, and without caring any longer to hide from Cornelius this dew of pearls dropping on her cheeks, "my fidelity! have I not been faithful to you ?" "Do you call it faithful to desert me, and to leave me here to die ?" "But, Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, "am I not doing everything for you that could give you pleasure?
have I not devoted myself to your tulip ?" "You are bitter, Rosa, you reproach me with the only unalloyed pleasure which I have had in this world." "I reproach you with nothing, Mynheer Cornelius, except, perhaps, with the intense grief which I felt when people came to tell me at the Buytenhof that you were about to be put to death." "You are displeased, Rosa, my sweet girl, with my loving flowers." "I am not displeased with your loving them, Mynheer Cornelius, only it makes me sad to think that you love them better than you do me." "Oh, my dear, dear Rosa! look how my hands tremble; look at my pale cheek, hear how my heart beats.