the officer, who was taking care of Rosa, lead, or rather, push her forwards towards him.
At the sight of Rosa, a double cry arose on the right and left of the Prince.
Boxtel, thunderstruck, and Cornelius, in joyful amazement, both exclaimed,—
“Rosa! Rosa!”
“This tulip is yours, is it not, my child?” said the Prince.
“Yes, Monseigneur,” stammered Rosa, whose striking beauty excited a general murmur of applause.
“Oh!” muttered Cornelius, “she has then belied me, when she said this flower was stolen from her. Oh! that is why she left Lœvestein. Alas! am I then forgotten, betrayed by her whom I thought my best friend on earth?”
“Oh!” sighed Boxtel, “I am lost.”
“This tulip,” continued the Prince, “will therefore bear the name of its producer, and figure in the catalogue under the title, Tulipa nigra Rosa Barlæensis, which will henceforth be the name of this damsel.”
And at the same time William took Rosa’s hand, and placed it in that of a young man, who rushed forth, pale and beyond himself with joy, to the foot of the throne, greeting alternately the Prince and his bride; and who, with a grateful look to Heaven, returned his thanks to the Giver of all this happiness.
At the same moment, there fell at the feet of the President Van Herysen, another man, struck down by a very different emotion.
Boxtel, crushed by the failure of his hopes, lay senseless on the ground.
When they raised him, and examined his pulse and his heart, he was quite dead.
This incident did not much disturb the festival, as neither the Prince nor the President seemed to mind it much.
Cornelius started back in dismay, when in the thief, in the pretended Jacob, he recognised his neighbour Isaac Boxtel, whom, in the innocence of his heart, he
