“They would have belonged to me after your death, but, fortunately, you are alive now. Oh how I blessed his Highness in my heart! If God grants to him all the happiness that I have wished him, certainly Prince William will be the happiest man on earth. When I looked at the Bible of your godfather Cornelius, I was resolved to bring back to you your bulbs, only I did not know how to accomplish it. I had, however, already formed the plan of going to the Stadtholder, to ask from him for my father the appointment of jailer of Loewestein, when your housekeeper brought me your letter. Oh, how we wept together! But your letter only confirmed me the more in my resolution. I then left for Leyden, and the rest you know.” “What, my dear Rosa, you thought, even before receiving my letter, of coming to meet me again?” “If I thought of it,” said Rosa, allowing her love to get the better of her bashfulness, “I thought of nothing else.” And, saying these words, Rosa looked so exceedingly pretty, that for the second time Cornelius placed his forehead and lips against the wire grating; of course, we must presume with the laudable desire to thank the young lady. Rosa, however, drew back as before. “In truth,” she said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in the heart of every young girl, “I have often been sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke to other people, and which was dumb to poor stupid me.” “So you have often regretted not being able to read,” said Cornelius. “I should just like to know on what occasions.” “Troth,” she said, laughing, “to read all the letters which were written to me.” “Oh, you received letters, Rosa?” “By hundreds.” “But who wrote to you?” “Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passed over the Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, all the clerks, and even the merchants who saw me at my little window.” “And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?” “Formerly,” she answered, “I got some friend to read them to me, which was capital fun, but since a certain time--well, what use is it to attend to all this nonsense?--since a certain time I have burnt them.” “Since a certain time!” exclaimed Cornelius, with a look beaming with love and joy. Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion, she did not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! only met the cold wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle, they communicated to the lips of the young girl the glowing breath of the most tender kiss. At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale,--perhaps paler than she had been on the day of the execution. She uttered a plaintive sob, closed her fine eyes, and fled, trying in vain to still the beating of her heart. And thus Cornelius was again alone.