Jane turned to roll her eyes at Shelley, missed her footing on the surprisingly slick steps, and nearly dropped a whole case of bobbins.

They got Mrs. Crossthwait settled in the upstairs room, which turned out to be something of a mistake because she climbed the stairs so slowly and awkwardly. Jane and Shelley made three trips with sewing materials in the time it took Mrs. Crossthwait to ascend the stairs. Then they went looking for Uncle Joe. He'd strung a grungy old rope between a couple trees and was just trying to make his escape when they caught up with him. "We need you to take the seamstress's sewing machine to her. It's in the Jeep in front and she's in the middle bedroom upstairs," Jane said."Sorry, miss. Bad back."

“Then you can use that dolly I saw in the attic," Jane insisted.

He muttered something that might have been an obscenity and shuffled off.

Jane and Shelley started hauling quilts outside. The laundry truck arrived just as they brought out the first four quilts. The driver of the white van hopped down and started setting white butcher-paper-wrapped parcels on the steps. "This is the Thatcher place, right?" he asked.

Jane confirmed that it was.

“Did you know these are linen sheets? We had to charge extra."

“Linen sheets?" Shelley asked. "The real things?"

“Genuine antiques," the deliveryman said.

Jane ran and got the checkbook Livvy had set up to pay for wedding expenses. As the truck pulled away, Shelley said, "Somebody has or had a lot of money. I wonder what's going to happen to the linens when the house is torn down."

“I imagine they'll get an antiques dealer in before then," Jane said.

“I wouldn't mind having some of those sheets," Shelley said, having opened one of the packages. She was greedily stroking a soft linen pillowcase.