Yesterday, Sunday, the shop had been closed. Sophie had not had so much as a corner of dry toast. Now, when Betsy put her empty tea mug into the sink, Sophie hurried ahead to the door.

They went down the stairs to the ground floor, around to an obscure door near the back wall, through it, and down a narrow hallway to the back door into the shop. Sophie waited impatiently for her mistress to unlock the door.

Godwin was already in the shop. To Sophie’s delight, he had a greasy, cholesterol-laden bacon and egg McMuffin. He was seated at the library table with it and a mug of coffee. While Betsy put the startup cash in the register, Sophie quietly went to touch him on the left shin to let him know where she was. As quietly, Godwin dropped a small piece of buttered muffin with a bit of egg clinging to it, confident it would never touch the carpet.

“Hey, Goddy!” said Betsy, slamming the drawer shut.

“Hmmm?” he said, startled into a too-perfect look of innocence.

“Remind me to call that blacktop company again this morning, will you?”

“Certainly,” he said, and when she began to check an order he’d made out, he dropped another morsel.

An hour later, Betsy was putting together a display of small kits consisting of a square of tan or pale green linen; lengths of green, pink, yellow, wine, dark gold, and brown floss; a pattern of tulips in a basket; and a needle. She had made up the kits herself, putting each into a clear plastic bag with daffodils printed on it, tied shut with curly yellow ribbon. She was arranging the kits, priced at seven dollars, in a pretty white basket beside a pot of real tulips and a finished model of the pattern, still in its little Q-snap holder. A stack of little Q-snaps, which had been selling poorly, waited suggestively close to the basket.