“But I did, father,” persisted Flax.

“You had better go into your mother, Flax,” said her father; “she will be anxious to see you.  I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.”

So Flax went sorrowfully into the house.  There was the tea-kettle singing beside the “skettle,” which had some nice smelling soup in it, the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby in her lap and the others all around her—­just as they had looked in the Pot of Gold.

Flax had never been so glad to see them before—­and if she didn’t hug and kiss them all!

“I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother,” cried she, “and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and everything in it.”

Her mother looked at her lovingly.  “Yes, Flax dear,” said she.

“But father said I was mistaken,” said Flax, “and did not find it.”

“Well, dear,” said her mother, “your father is a poet, and very wise; we will say no more about it.  You can sit down here and hold the baby now, while I make the tea.”

Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy that she did not care any longer whether she had found the true Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow or not.

But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that she had.

THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS.

Once there was a farmer who had a very rare and valuable cow.  There was not another like her in the whole kingdom.  She was as white as the whitest lily you ever saw, and her horns, which curved very gracefully, were of gold.

She had a charming green meadow, with a silvery pool in the middle, to feed in.  Almost all the grass was blue-eyed grass, too, and there were yellow lilies all over the pool.

The farmer’s daughter, who was a milkmaid, used to tend the gold-horned cow.  She was a very pretty girl.  Her name was Drusilla.  She had long flaxen hair, which hung down to her ankles in two smooth braids, tied with blue ribbons.  She had blue eyes and pink cheeks, and she wore a blue petticoat, with garlands of rose-buds all over it, and a white dimity short gown, looped up with bunches of roses.  Her hat was a straw flat, with a wreath of rose-buds around it, and she always carried a green willow branch in her hand to drive the cow with.

She used to sit on a bank near the silvery pool, and watch the gold-horned cow, and sing to herself all day from the time the dew was sparkling over the meadow in the morning, till it fell again at night.  Then she would drive the cow gently home, with her green willow stick, milk her, and feed her, and put her into her stable, herself, for the night.