Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/152

 had scarcely pronounced these consolatory words, when a voice was heard from the staircase, asking Gryphus how matters were going on.

“Do you hear, father?” said Rosa.

“What?”

“Master Jacob calls you, he is uneasy.”

“There was such a noise,” said Gryphus; “wouldn’t you have thought he would murder me, this doctor? They are always very troublesome fellows, these scholars.”

Then, pointing with his finger towards the staircase, he said to Rosa, “Just lead the way, Miss.”

After this, he locked the door and called out, “I shall be with you directly, friend Jacob.”

Poor Cornelius, thus left alone with his bitter grief, muttered to himself,—

“Ah ! you old hangman, it is me you have trodden under foot; you have murdered me, I shall not survive it!”

And certainly the unfortunate prisoner would have fallen ill, but for the counterpoise which Providence had granted to his grief, and which was called Rosa.

In the evening she came back. Her first words announced to Cornelius, that henceforth her father would no longer make any objection to his cultivating flowers.

“And how do you know that?” the prisoner asked, with a doleful look.

“I know it, because he has said so.”

“To deceive me, perhaps.”

“No, he repents.”