Rosa felt her heart sink within her, and her eyes were filling with tears.
“Alas!” she said.
“What is it?” asked Cornelius.
“I see one thing.”
“What do you see?”
“I see,” said she, bursting out in sobs, “I see that you love your tulips with such love as to have no more room in your heart left for other affections.”
Saying this, she fled.
Cornelius, after this, passed one of the worst nights he ever had in his life.
Rosa was vexed with him, and with good reason. Perhaps she would never return to see the prisoner, and then he would have no more news, either of Rosa or of his tulips.
We have to confess, to the disgrace of our hero and of floriculture, that of his two affections he felt most strongly inclined to regret the loss of Rosa; and when, at about three in the morning, he fell asleep overcome with fatigue, and harassed with remorse, the grand black tulip yielded precedence in his dreams to the sweet blue eyes of the fair maid of Friesland.