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.

So, down the road she went, looking anxiously on either side. "If
only I could come in sight of her, browsing in the clover, beside the
wall," sighed she; but she did not.

After a while, she saw a great cloud of dust in the distance. It
rolled nearer and nearer, and finally she saw the King on horseback,
with a large party of nobles galloping after him. The King, who was
quite an old man, had a very long, curling, white beard, and had his
breast completely covered with orders and decorations. No convenient
board fence on a circus day was ever more thoroughly covered with