And then Judy screamed, joyfully, "Oh, Belinda, Belinda, you precious pussy cat," and in her relief she hugged the great white animal, as if she were not the same girl who, not many days before, had said, "I hate cats."
Becky walked around in a circle and inspected Judy.
"So it was you, Becky, was it?" asked Judy, "that I saw first? But what made you look so tall?"
She went to the place where she had first seen the apparition, and found the slender stump of a tree, on top of which Becky had been perched.
"What are you doing here, so far from home, Belinda," asked Judy, as she sat down and took the purring, gentle creature in her lap.
But Belinda could not talk, although she patted Judy's hand with her paw and curled down with her head in the crook of Judy's arm.
"My, it's good to have you here," said Judy, "but I wonder how it happened."
She gathered the big cat close to her, grateful for the warmth of the soft body, and with Becky perched up on a rock behind, she sat very still, comforted by the sound of Belinda's sleepy song, and by Becky's sentinel-like watchfulness.
It was in the black darkness that precedes the dawn that she was roused by a lantern flashing across her eyes.
"Grandfather," she said, sleepily, as a haggard old face bent above her. "Grandfather."