WHEN Stafford County resident Leanne Winkler found little lost Lulu from Massachusetts a few weeks back, the sad Siamese mix gained a guardian angel.

Winkler said the kitty ended up being a comfort to her, as well, and the discovery led to a friendship with the cat's owner, who lives half the year in New England and the other half in Florida.

Lulu's "mom," Marybeth Home, lost Lulu when she was making the trek from her house in Northampton, Mass., to a spot in Florida where she spends half the year.

While she and another relative were staying at the Motel 6 on U.S. 17 in Stafford County Dec. 14, the cat got tired of being "corralled" in the bathroom and bolted out the door.

"She disappeared under the barrier fence and into the woods separating the motel from Interstate 95," Home wrote in an e-mail. "We had to leave the next day after an anguished and futile search."

Though she left word with animal rescue personnel locally and posted a "lost cat" ad here, days and weeks went by, and the winter got colder and colder, with no word of anyone finding her beloved Lulu.

Neither Winkler nor Home knows all that happened to little Lulu between that evening in mid-December and late February, when Winkler noticed her near her home on the corner of Forbes Street and Harrell Road in southern Stafford.

"I feed some feral cats not far from my home and noticed one with them on February 23 that was wearing a collar," said Winkler. "I tried to take a closer look, but she scooted away."

On a Friday night, Feb. 25, Winkler said, "She came to me crying and let me pick her up. I scooped her up and took her inside to get a look at her tag."

Winkler said she called the number on the cat's collar and waited for a return phone call. Using the Internet, she found that the number was an exchange in Massachusetts, but figured the cat might belong to someone who'd just moved here.