“At any rate, if he loves you, Rosa, which is very likely, as to see you is to love you, at least you don’t love him.”
“To be sure I don’t.”
“Then you wish me to keep my mind easy?”
“I should certainly ask you to do so.”
“Well, then, now as you begin to know how to read you will read all that I write to you of the pangs of jealousy and of absence, won’t you, Rosa?”
“I shall read it, if you write with good big letters.”
Then, as the turn which the conversation took began to make Rosa uneasy, she asked,—
“By the bye, how is your tulip going on?”
“Oh, Rosa, only imagine my joy, this morning I looked at it in the sun, and after having moved the soil aside which covers the bulb, I saw the first sprouting of the leaves. This small germ has caused me a much greater emotion than the order of his Highness which turned aside the sword already raised at the Buytenhof.”
“You hope, then?” said Rosa, smiling.