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.
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