Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/141

 “we have one hour every evening, let us make a good use of it.”

“I don’t think we make such a bad use of it as it is.”

“Let us employ it even better,” said Rosa, smiling. “Teach me to read and to write. I shall make the best of your lessons, believe me; and, in this way, we shall never be separated any more, except by our own will.”

“Oh, then, we have eternity before us,” said Cornelius.

Rosa smiled, and quietly shrugged her shoulders.

“Will you remain for ever in prison?” she said; “and, after having granted you your life, will not His Highness also grant you your liberty? And will you not then recover your fortune, and be a rich man; and then, when you are driving in your own coach, riding your own horse, will you still look at poor Rosa, the daughter of a jailor, scarcely better than a hangman?”

Cornelius tried to contradict her, and certainly he would have done so with all his heart, and with all the sincerity of a soul full of love.

She, however, smilingly interrupted him, saying, “How is your tulip going on?”

To speak to Cornelius of his tulip was an expedient resorted to by her to make him forget everything, even Rosa herself.

“Pretty well, indeed,” he said, “the coat is growing black; the sprouting has commenced; the veins of the bulb are swelling; in eight days hence, and perhaps sooner, we may distinguish the first buds of the leaves protruding—and yours, Rosa?”

Oh, I have done things on a large scale, and, according to your directions.

“Now, let me hear, Rosa, what you have done,” said