Strangers who saw them together invariably took the little girl to be the old lady’s grand-daughter; and Mrs. Lyon was always rather pleased by the mistake.
And little Drusilla was “as happy as the day was long.”
So passed the spring and half the summer.
But in the middle of July the chief justice and his wife went to the mountains, to old Lyon Hall, on a visit to the general and his daughter, where they expected to be joined by Mr. Alexander.
Little Drusilla wept over the departure of her friends; but when they were gone she occupied herself with the commissions Mrs. Lyon had left to her—left with the purpose of interesting and amusing the lonely child during her own absence. These were to weed the flower beds, feed the chickens, and take small sweet apples to the favorite cows at the afternoon milking-time.
All these pleasant tasks did the little girl gladly and faithfully perform.
Nevertheless the days seemed long, now that her dear old friends were gone.
But days and weeks, however tedious, pass away in time.
At the end of six weeks, on the first of September, the chief justice and his wife come back to Crowood.
Mrs. Lyon could not enough praise the fidelity of her little handmaiden. There was not a weed to be found in all the flower beds; the chickens were fat, and the cows in a good condition (though this last item was of course due more to the fine grazing than to the little treats of sweet apples tendered to them by the little Drusilla.)