She'd think about something pleasant. Amy tried to fix her mind on her gardening, on how well her plants were doing, but it wasn't a success. When she tried to keep her thoughts on her Venusian Rambler (why did they call it a Rambler?--it was turning into a large, stocky, compact bush more like an outsized Camellia than anything else Amy Dinsmore could think of), they kept veering back to her dream and all that--all that-- Well, then she'd think about Robert. She was a lucky woman to have a nephew like him. She'd worked out several menus, all the things he liked best, but she wished she could think of something a little different. There were so few kinds of meat, when everything was said and done. Lamb and beef and musk ox and bollo and pork. And she always thought bollo was stringy and tough. Gradually Amy's nerves began to quiet. The cats had grown quiet too, except for an occasional outburst that sounded like lightning made audible. Her thoughts drifted lazily from Robert to her soap carving. After a while she went to sleep.... The morning was sunny and bright, and she felt almost ashamed of herself for having let a dream affect her so seriously. She had finished her matutinal inspection of the hothouse and the succulent growing-shed and had started back to the house when she came on a bundle lying by the hothouse wall. At first she didn't recognize it for what it was, and stooped over it, poking at it with a stick. After an instant she straightened, nauseated, remembering where she had last seen that ginger-colored fur. The bundle was the not very bulky remains--bones, and some patches of hide--of a cat. Hadn't there been some pieces of white fur too?--of two cats. She'd better call Hjalmar. It might be dangerous. There must be some wild animal living near her hothouse, a lynx or ferret or wildcat or stoat. Mrs. Dinsmore wasn't strong on zoology, but she knew exactly what sort of an animal she had in mind--something lithe and dark and blood-thirsty. Goodness. It was quite frightening. On the other hand, Robert would be in port in a couple of days. If she asked Hjalmar to help her, he'd either make an enormous masculine fuss over it (she still remembered the time she'd asked him to put up a towel rack for her and he'd arrived with a set of socket wrenches, a hand electric drill, four pairs of pliers, and a portable arc welding outfit) or he'd pooh-pooh and pish-tush her into silence. Either way, it wouldn't be satisfactory. She'd wait for Robert; Robert was so comforting. If only she didn't have more of those dreams! * * * * *