to announce to the members of the Horticultural Society that she had produced the Grand Black Tulip. But she did not stop there. There is no doubt but that, during the few hours which she kept the flower in her room, she showed it to some persons, whom she may now call as witnesses. But, fortunately, Your Highness has now been warned against this impostor and her witnesses.”
“Oh, my God! my God! what infamous falsehoods,” said Rosa, bursting into tears, and throwing herself at the feet of the Stadtholder, who, although thinking her guilty, felt pity for her dreadful agony.
“You have done very wrong, my child,” he said, “and your lover shall be punished for having thus badly advised you. For you are so young, and have such an honest look, that I am inclined to believe the mischief to have been his doing, and not yours.”
“Monseigneur! Monseigneur!” cried Rosa, “Cornelius is not guilty.”
William started.
“Not guilty of having advised you; that’s what you want to say, is it not?”
“What I wish to say, Your Highness, is, that Cornelius is as little guilty of the second crime imputed to him, as he was of the first.”
“Of the first? And do you know what was his first crime? Do you know of what he was accused and convicted? Of having, as an accomplice of Cornelius De Witte, concealed the correspondence of the Grand Pensionary and the Marquis De Louvois.”
Well, sir, he was ignorant of this correspondence being deposited with him; completely ignorant. I am as certain, as of my life, that if it were not so, he would have told me; for how could that pure mind have harboured a secret without revealing it to me? No,
