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 is composed of three parts of common mould, taken from the best spot of the garden, and one of the sweepings of the road. I have heard you and that detestable Jacob, as you call him, so often talk about what is the soil best fitted for growing tulips, that I know it as well as the first gardener of Haarlem.”

“And now, what is the aspect, Rosa?”

“At present, it has the sun all day long, that is to say, when the sun shines. But when it once peeps out of the ground, I shall do, as you have done here, dear Mynheer Cornelius, I shall put it out in my window, on the eastern side, from eight in the morning until eleven, and in my window, towards the west, from three to five in the afternoon.”

“That’s it, that’s it,” cried Cornelius; “and you are a perfect gardener, my pretty Rosa. 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 thau 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