“No, I mean, I can see the weave, I can actually see the weave!”

Betsy and Godwin exchanged smiles. While Alice was not in a position to afford a Dazor, her reaction was exactly what they’d hoped for. Other customers would sit there and hold a piece of high-count linen under that magnifying light, and the cash register would ring merrily.

Two more Monday Bunch members came in to sit down with projects and soon the table was alive with helpful hints and gossip. Betsy kept the coffee cups filled, served the occasional customer, and brought patterns, fabrics, and fibers to the table to be examined and, often enough, set aside by the cash register.

She came from the back with the newest Mirabilia pattern to hear Martha saying in an amused voice, “Honestly, Emily acts as if hers is the first baby ever born! All she ever talks about anymore is the joy and burden of staying home with an infant.”

“All first-time mothers are like that,” said Kate McMahon with a little sigh. “My Susan certainly is, and I expect I was, too.”

“Have any of you talked to Irene lately?” asked Betsy, anxious on behalf of Alice to change the subject. Alice ’s only child had died young of a heart ailment.

“No, why?” asked Phil Galvin, a retired railroad engineer. He was working on a counted cross stitch pattern of a mountain goat.

“She has made the most amazing-”

The door to the shop made its annoying Bing! sound, and a very big police officer came in. He was about twenty-five, golden blond, and excited. “Found you at last, Jill!” he exclaimed, his voice as loud as he was big.

“Hi, Lars!” said Jill, getting up and heading toward him. “What’s up?”

“Look at this, look what I found!” He had a sheaf of papers in his hand and thrust it at her.

Jill took the papers, glanced at the top one, then more slowly looked at two or three sheets under it. “What is this? Some kind of old car-what, reported stolen?” she asked. “Where’d it turn up?”