The Pot of Gold | Page 9

all her fine
things much. She did not ride the white palfrey now, but went home on
foot, in the dewy morning, as fast as she could trip.
When she came in sight of the cottage, there was her father sitting in
his old place at the window. When he saw his beloved daughter coming,
he ran out to meet her as fast as he could hobble, and they tenderly
embraced each other.
The King had provided liberally for the old man while Drusilla was in
the seminary, but now that he was so angry at her alleged deception, his
support would probably cease, and, since the gold-horned cow was lost,
it was a question how they would live. The father and daughter sat
talking it over after they had entered the cottage. It was a puzzling
question, and Drusilla was weeping a little, when her father gave a
joyful cry:
"Look, look, Drusilla!"
Drusilla looked up quickly, and there was the milk-white face and
golden horns of the cow peering through the vines in the window. She
was eating some of the pink and white roses.
Drusilla and her father hastened out with joyful exclamations, and there
was the cow, sure enough. A couple of huge wicker baskets were slung
across her broad back, and one was filled to the brim with gold coins,
and the other with jewels, diamonds, pearls and rubies.
When Drusilla and her father saw them, they both threw their arms
around the gold-horned cow's neck, and cried for joy. She turned her
head and gazed at them a moment with her calm, gentle eyes; then she
went on eating roses.
When the King heard of all this, he came with the Queen in a golden
coach, to see Drusilla and her father. "I am convinced now of your
truthfulness," he said majestically, when the Court Jeweler had
examined the cow's horns to see if they were true gold, and not merely

gilded, and he had seen with his own eyes the two baskets full of coins
and jewels. "And, if you would like to be Princess, you can be, and also
marry the Prince of Egypt."
But Drusilla threw her arms around her father's neck. "No; your
Majesty," she said timidly, "I had rather stay with my father, if you
please, than be a Princess, and I rather live here and tend my dear cow,
than marry the Prince of Egypt."
The King sighed, and so did the Queen; they knew they never should
find another such beautiful Princess. But, then, the King had not kept
his part of the contract and found the gold-horned cow, and he could
not compel her to be a Princess without breaking the royal word.
So the cow was again led out to pasture in the little meadow of
blue-eyed grasses, and Drusilla, though she was very rich now, used to
find no greater happiness than to sit on the banks of the silvery pool
where the yellow lilies grew, and watch her.
They had their poor little cottage torn down and a grand castle built
instead: but the roof of that was thatched and over-grown with moss,
and pink and white roses clustered thickly around the walls. It was just
as much like their old home as a castle can be like a cottage. The
gold-horned cow had, also, a magnificent new stable. Her eating-trough
was the finest moss rose-bud china, she had dried rose leaves instead of
hay to eat, and there were real lace curtains at all the stable windows,
and a lace _portière_ over her stall.
The King and Queen used to visit Drusilla often; they gave her back her
rick-rack dress, and grew very fond of her, though she would not be a
Princess. Finally, however, they prevailed upon her to be made a
countess. So she was called "Lady Drusilla," and she had a coat of arms,
with the gold-horned cow rampant on it, put up over the great gate of
the castle.

PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.

I.
THE PRINCESS ROSETTA.
The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of May; all the court
went. The court-ladies wore green silk scarfs, long green floating
plumes in their bonnets, and green satin petticoats embroidered with
apple-blossoms. The court-gentlemen wore green velvet tunics with
nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green silk hose. Their little pointed
shoes were adorned with knots of flowers instead of buckles.
As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of cherry and
peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and carried a white thorn-branch
instead of his scepter. His green velvet robe was trimmed with a border
of blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen wore a garland
of violets around her golden head, and the