It took her some time before she was her cheerful little self again. Even the pat of butter Kinnia gave her to stamp failed to bring her consolation. But a good drenching in buttermilk froth helped her wonderfully; and when Kinnia (who, I am afraid, was not guiltless in the matter of that drenching) had wiped the small, rosy face dry again, she felt inclined to give credence to Kinnia’s expressed faith that she would see Bainidhe again before very long. A greater number of poor came that day to the gate than usual. Darlugdacha was kept very busy helping Kinnia to attend to their wants. Here a poor woman wanted milk for her sick son; there a crippled girl had come for butter; for a poor man with a large family there was a great loaf of bread, with cheese and bacon, and a measure of milk. Now, as Darlugdacha flew from the kitchen to the dairy, and thence to the gate, she seemed to have in her ears all the time the lowing of Bainidhe. At last, towards evening, when all the other poor had departed, there came a great knocking with the “bas-chrannidhe” at the door; and when Kinnia and Darlugdacha went to open it, what should they find before them but the two lepers of the day before—and Bainidhe. They had not been able to drive Bainidhe a single step beyond a certain point in the plain, well within sight of the Oak Tree. And so they had come back to ask Brigid to help them again. Happy Darlugdacha, her small arms round Bainidhe’s white neck, her small hand alternately stroking Bainidhe’s nose, or pulling her red ear, was welcoming her restored darling, while Bainidhe was lowing with contentment, and trying to tell how clever she had been, and Kinnia was away with Blathnata in the kitchen, preparing a comfortable meal for the two poor lepers. At that moment the tinkling of cow-bells was heard, and Brigid came in sight, driving her cattle across the plain. The lepers could not await her coming. They were off to meet her like two flashes of lightning. And presently, over the lowing of the cattle and the tinkling of the cow-bells, and the joyous barking of the “cubuachaill” (_i.e._, “dog-cowherd,” sheep-dog), Darlugdacha could hear their hoarse voices telling Brigid their story. Then, quite suddenly, the tinkling of a cow-bell was heard from another direction, and a man was seen coming from the North driving a cow before him. Darlugdacha left off stroking Bainidhe for a moment, and waited to see what would happen. Brigid and the lepers and _her_ cows came up with the stranger and _his_ cow just at the Lios gate. “My Master has sent this cow to thee as a gift,” said the man, and put an end of the halter that was round the cow’s neck in Brigid’s hand. With that he was off again. Brigid looked at the cow which she held haltered, and then at the one Darlugdacha was stroking. And Darlugdacha looked at the new cow, and then at Bainidhe, and then back again. _The two cows were exactly alike._