“Right in the middle of the path!” said she. “I went down the same way we took last night, to the shore. And there he lay just above the spot where we saw Sal Seguin, under a little juniper bush, right in the path. He just lay there, too tired to move. He couldn’t drag himself up the slope, but he answered when I called. Such a weary, worn, limp cat! What do you suppose he had been doing to get so tired? Where do you suppose he had been all night?”
“Nobody knew where Kilmeny had been”
said Cicely, quoting the old ballad about the girl who went to visit the Fairies.
“Did you go off with the Fairies, Patsy?” asked Nancy, putting her face close to that of the white cat.
“Mi-aou!” cried Patsy dolorously.
“I believe he did!” whispered Nancy to Cicely Vane.
“I’m glad he’s safe,” said Anne, and the white cat licked her cheek feebly. He was almost too tired to be polite.
“Anyway, Sal Seguin didn’t carry him off,” said Hugh. “That was what I suspected.”
“Perhaps she did, and he found his way back,” suggested Anne. “That was what I was afraid of, too.”
“I believe he was there all the time and we didn’t see him,” declared Nancy. “I believe he found the fern-seed that we missed, ate it, and became invisible.”