The farmer was feeble and old, so his daughter had to do all this.  The gold-horned cow’s stable was a sort of a “lean-to,” built into the side of the cottage where Drusilla and her father lived.  Its roof, as well as that of the cottage, was thatched and overgrown with moss, out of which had grown, in its turn, a little starry white flower, until the whole roof looked like a flower-bed.  There were roses climbing over the walls of the cottage and stable, also, pink and white ones.

Drusilla used to keep the gold-horned cow’s stable in exquisite order.  Her trough to eat out of, was polished as clean as a lady’s china tea-cup.  She always had fresh straw, and her beautiful long tail was tied by a blue ribbon to a ring in the ceiling, in order to keep it nice.

The gold-horned cow’s milk was better than any other’s, as one would reasonably suppose it to have been.  The cream used to be at least an inch thick, and so yellow; and the milk itself had a peculiar and exquisite flavor—­perhaps the best way to describe it, is to say it tasted as lilies smell.  The gentry all about were eager to buy it, and willing to pay a good price for it.  Drusilla used to go around to supply her customers, nights and mornings, a bright, shining milk-pail in each hand, and one on her head.  She had learned to carry herself so steadily in consequence that she walked like a queen.

[Illustration:  Drusilla and her gold-horned cow.]

Everybody admired Drusilla, and all the young shepherds and farmers made love to her, but she did not seem to care for any of them, but to prefer tending her gold-horned cow, and devoting herself to her old father—­she was a very dutiful daughter.

Everything went prosperously with them for a long time; the cow thrived, and gave a great deal of milk, customers were plenty, they paid the rent for their cottage regularly, and Drusilla who was a beautiful spinner, had her linen chest filled to the brim with the finest linen.

At length, however, a great misfortune befell them.  One morning—­it was the day after a holiday—­Drusilla, who had been up very late the night before dancing on the village green, felt very sleepy, as she sat watching the cow in the green meadow.  So she just laid her flaxen head down amongst the blue-eyed grasses, and soon fell fast asleep.

When she woke up, the dew was all dried off, and the sun almost directly overhead.  She rubbed her eyes, and looked about for the gold-horned cow.  To her great alarm, she was nowhere to be seen.  She jumped up, distractedly, and ran over the meadow, but the gold-horned cow was certainly not there.  The bars were up, just as she had left them, and there was not a gap in the stonewall which extended around the meadow.  How could she have gotten out?  It was very mysterious!

Drusilla, when she found, certainly, that the gold-horned cow was gone, lost no time in wonderment and conjecture; she started forth to find her.  “I will not tell father till I have searched a long time,” said she to herself.