The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-12
ROSA. CVrRCO1E BY THE SIoHT or Ills HlGHNESS; ToLD HER. STCRY -fAIfRlNGEI

reality, after the bulb of tine black tulip. To the disgrace of Cornelius as tulip grower it must be confessed that his first emotion was not so much fear for the bulb as rage against the unknown ad- mirer, until Rosa calmed him by deserib ing the man, Jacob Gisels, as hideous and old.
 Day after day now she brought him news of her plant-how and when she watered it, how she shifted it hour by hour so that it should get all the sun, then how it began to show the first tiny shoot above ground, and on one never-to- be-forgotten day. how the flower had began to form.
 At last one night he heard rustic at the door. There stood Rosa, holding aloft a pot while with the other hand she held a light Cornelius looked and nearly swooned The light fell on a miraculous flower. black as jet, without a spot of another color-the impossible made real! With a trembling voice he told her to dispatch letter at once to the president of the society, Mynheer van Systems. burgomaster of Haarlem, telling him that
 
 of Loevenstein and asking him to repair there at once to see the wonder
 So wildly excited were they that they did not hear light step behind Rosa or see the face peering from the shadows and listening to evedy word It was Isaac Boxtel, known to Rosa as Jacob Gisels.
 Stealthily he went down the winding stairs and concealed himself near Rosa's door. He knew that she would return to lock the tulip in her room and then she would slip out again to give the letter to a messenger, as Boxtel had heard her ex- plain to Cornelius.
 Long before this he had made sure that Rosa was rearing one of the bulbs. He had obtained a key that would open her door, and he had waited only for the flower to unfold and prove itself indubita- bly black, Scarcely had Rosa put it away and left the room before he was in it. When she returned the tulip was gone
 Poor Cornelius went nearly mad when Rosa, trembling and hysterical, came to him with the news. He shook at the grat- ing of the door and cried aloud that he
 
 stone in order to lay his hands on the thief. So wild were his rage and grief that his voice thundered along the corri- dor and brought old Gryphus, who lis- tened with amazement to words that told him that his daughter was on more than friendly terms with his prisoner, although he could not discover the reason for the outburst of rage.
 When the jailer came upon them sud- denly Rosa fled with a scream. She real ized now that she would not be permitted to communicate with her beloved Cor nelius again. There was, then, only one thing left for her to do-to find the stolen tulip And there was, of course, only one place where it would be taken-Haar- lem.
 She went hastily to her room, took 300 forins that she had saved, hid the third bulb carefully away in her bodice and then double locked her room and left the prison. She borrowed 6 horse without diff ficulty at the tavern and started at full speed toward Haarlem.
 She arrived there to find the city might fly excited over 8 black tulip that at last had been produced and was at that mo- ment in Haarlem. in the care of it's own