Ashton writes that she is thrilled Stark is happy with her progress on McKenna’s biography, but she has something she cannot wait to tell him. She saw it firsthand, and if she is correct, Stephens & Stark Publishing will have the “publishing coup of the century.” Scholarly papers will be written, degrees will be granted, and Isola Pribby will be sought after by every university, library, and rich private collector in the entire Western Hemisphere.

Pribby was supposed to speak about Pride and Prejudice at last night’s Society meeting, but her goat Ariel ate her notes right before dinner. In her desperate hurry, Pribby grabbed several letters written by her Granny Pheen. When she pulled out the bundle of letters, wrapped in pink silk and bound with a satin bow, Thisbee exclaimed that they must be love letters and wondered if any secrets would be revealed. Pribby told him to hush and sit down.

The letters were written to her Granny Pheen (short for Josephine) by a very kind stranger when Pheen was just a little girl. Pribby's granny had kept them in a biscuit tin and had often read them to Pribby as a bedtime story. When Granny Pheen was nine years old, her father drowned her cat, Muffin, for climbing on the table and licking the butter dish. That was enough for her father to tie the cat into a burlap sack, along with some rocks, and throw it into the ocean. He met his daughter as she was walking home from school to tell her what he had done and that he was glad to be rid of the animal; he then walked on to the tavern, leaving a broken-hearted little girl sobbing in the middle of the road.

A carriage traveling too fast nearly hit the girl, and the coachman began to curse her; however, the passenger jumped out of the carriage and told the driver to be quiet. He was a very big man, wearing a dark coat with a fur collar, and he leaned over Pribby’s grandmother and asked if he could help her. The girl said there was nothing to be done; her father had drowned Muffin, and the cat was gone forever. The man quickly responded that Muffin was surely not dead; she must not have heard that cats have nine lives. The man assured her that he knew for a fact that Muffin was only on his third life.

When Pheen asked how he could know such a thing, the man told her he had just been born with a sense of knowing. He did not know how or why, but cats would often appear to him as if in a vision and talk to him—in pictures, not words, of course. He sat down next to her on the road and said they must be very still so that he could see if Muffin wanted to visit with him. After several minutes of silence, the man suddenly grabbed the girl’s hand and told her that Muffin was being born this very minute . . . in a castle . . . in France . . . and a little boy was petting her. He named her Solange, and she was going to live a long and adventurous life.

Pheen told Pribby that she was so engrossed in Muffin’s new life that she stopped crying, but she told the man she would still miss Muffin. He lifted her to her feet and told her that she should mourn for a cat like Muffin and would probably grieve for a while. He promised...