Meantime, the King was keeping up an energetic search for the gold-horned cow.  Every stable and pasture in the Kingdom was searched, spies were posted everywhere, but the King could not find her.  She had disappeared as completely as if she had vanished altogether from the face of the earth.  It at last began to be whispered about that there never had been any gold-horned cow, but that the whole had been a clever trick of Drusilla’s, that she might become a Princess.  An envious schoolmate, who had been very desirous of becoming Princess and marrying the Prince of Egypt herself, started the report; and it soon spread over the whole Kingdom.  The King heard it and began to believe it; for he could not see why he failed to find the cow.  It always exasperated the King dreadfully to fail in anything, and he never allowed that it was his own fault, if he could possibly help it.

At last the end of the year came, and still no signs of the gold-horned cow.  Then the King became convinced that Drusilla had cheated him, that there never had been any such wonderful cow, and that she had used this trick in order to become a Princess.  Of course, the King felt more comfortable to believe this, for it accounted satisfactorily for his own failure to find her, and it is extremely mortifying for a King to be unable to do anything he sets out to.

So Drusilla was dismissed from the seminary in disgrace, and sent home.  Her jewels and fine clothes were all taken away from her, even her rick-rack dress, and she put on her blue petticoat and short gown, and straw flat again.  Still, she was so happy at the prospect of seeing her dear old father again, that she did not mind the loss of 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.