So now, the milkmaid, instead of sitting, singing, in a green meadow, watching her beautiful gold-horned cow, had to sit all day in a high-backed chair, her feet on a little foot-stool with an embroidered pussy cat on it, and do fancy work.  The young ladies worked by electric light; for the seminary was asleep nearly all the time, and no sunlight could get in at the windows, for boards clapped down over them like so many eye-lids when the seminary began to doze.

Drusilla had left off her pretty blue petticoat and white short gown now, and was dressed in gold-flowered satin, with an immense train, which two pages bore for her when she walked.  Her pretty hair was combed high and powdered, and she wore a comb of gold and pearls in it.  She looked very lovely, but she also looked very sad.  She could not help thinking, even in the midst of all this splendor, of her dear father, and her own home, and wishing to see them.

She was a very apt pupil.  Her tatting collars were the admiration of the whole seminary, and she made herself a whole dress of rick-rack.  She painted a charming umbrella stand for the King, and actually worked the gold-horned cow in Kensington stitch, on a blue satin tidy, for the Queen.  It was so natural that she wept over it, herself, when it was finished; but the Queen was delighted, and put it on her best stuffed rocking-chair in her parlor, and would run and throw it back every time the King sat down there, for fear he would lean his head against it and soil it.

Drusilla also worked an elegant banner of old gold satin, with hollyhocks, for the King to carry at the head of his troops when he went to battle; also a hat-band for the Prince of Egypt.  This last was sent by a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince sent an exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator’s skin to Drusilla in return.  She was the envy of the whole seminary when it came.

The young ladies fared very delicately.  Their one article of diet was peaches and cream.  It was thought to improve their complexions.  Once in a while, they went out to drive by moonlight; they were afraid of sunburn by day, and they wore white gauze veils, even in the moonlight, and they all had embroidered afghans of their own handiwork.

They used to sit around a large table over which hung a chandelier of the electric light, to work, and some young lady either played “Home, sweet Home, and variations,” or else “The Maiden’s Prayer,” on the piano for their entertainment.

It seemed as if Drusilla ought to have been happy in a place like this; but although she was diligent and dutiful, she grieved all the time for her father.