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 no, Your Highness, I repeat it, and even at the risk of incurring your displeasure, Cornelius is no more guilty of the first crime than of the second; and of the second, no more than of the first. Oh, would to Heaven, that you know my Cornelius, Monseigneur!”

“He is a De Witte!” cried Boxtel. “His Highness knows only too much of him, having once granted him his life.”

“Silence!” said the Prince; “all these affairs of state, as I have already said, are completely out of the province of the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.” Then, knitting his brow, he added,—

“As to the tulip, make yourself casy, Master Boxtel, you shall have justice done to you.”

Boxtel bowed, with a heart full of joy, and received the congratulations of the President.

“You, my child,” William of Orange continued, you were going to commit a crime. I shall not punish you; but the real evil-doer will pay the penalty for both. A man of his name, may be a conspirator, and even a traitor, but he ought not to be a thief.”

“A thief!” cried Rosa. “Cornelius a thief! Pray, Your Highness, do not say such a word; it would kill him if he knew it. If theft there has been, I swear to you, sir, no one else but this man has committed it.”

“Prove it,” Boxtel coolly remarked.

“I shall prove it. With God’s help I shall.”

Then, turning towards Boxtel, she asked,—

“The tulip is yours?”

“It is.”

“How many suckers were there of it?”

Boxtel hesitated for a moment, but, after a short consideration, he came to the conclusion that she would not ask this question, if there were none besides the two bulbs of which he had known already. He, therefore, answered,—