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years, who was nearly stone deaf but refused to wear hearing aids. “There’s aids enough in this world!” was her common reply.
    Miss Rose appeared behind her husband, wearing a chenille bathrobe and a turban adorned with…maybe a mashed-flat silk tiger lily…or was it a gladiolus?
    “You leave that dog outside,” she shouted. The gladiolus bobbed as she spoke.
    “Yes ma’am,” he said, “I was going to do that.”
    “And don’t strap him to my lawn chairs, he’ll haul them off every whichaway.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    He attached his patient dog to the post on the porch stoop and went in with the sack from the Grill. “A little something to add to your supper menu,” he said. He loved to bring fries to Uncle Billy, though he had to monitor Miss Rose or she would eat the whole caboodle and leave her husband holding the bag.
    “What is it?” asked the old woman, looking especially fierce.
    “Chicken, fries—”
    “Bill Watson won’t eat chicken thighs!” She snatched the bag from Father Tim’s hand and bolted down the hallway. “He likes white meat!”
    “I be dadgum,” said her husband, sounding plaintive. “Rose! You come back!”
    They heard the bedroom door slam and the lock click.
    “Eh, law,” sighed Uncle Billy.
    “Well, well,” said Father Tim, not knowing what else to say.
    “Some days is worse than others, don’t you know.”
    Father Tim thought Uncle Billy looked exceedingly fragile, like a dry leaf blown on the wind.
    “You feel like going down to the Grill before they close? We’ll sit there in peace and you can have whatever you like. I’ll tip in a chocolate milkshake.”
    Uncle Billy’s filmy eyes appeared to sparkle. “I’d be beholden to you, yessir, I would.”
    “And I’d be beholden to you,” said Father Tim, eager for his old friend’s company.
     
    Walking down the street with Bill Watson was slow going, but he didn’t mind. After all, he had nowhere to hurry to, and Barnabas seemed happy enough.
    “We’un’s’ll be a whole lot older when we git there,” said Uncle Billy.
    He was helping Uncle Billy negotiate the curb when he looked up and saw her getting out of the Lincoln, several buildings away. It never failed; no matter how often he’d seen her over the years, it was always the same: His heart hammered, his mouth went dry, and he wanted to run for his life.
    She glanced his way and appeared to stare for a moment as he helped Uncle Billy along the pavement. He turned his head at once, and when he looked again, Edith Mallory had disappeared into the Sweet Stuff Bakery.
     
    On his way home from Uncle Billy’s, where Miss Rose was still cloistered in the bedroom, he dodged into Happy Endings.
    Margaret Ann, the orange cat, was sprawled on the counter by the register; Hope Winchester sat on a stool reading…he couldn’t see what.
    “What’s new?” he asked, thinking that Hope looked unusually attractive today, rather like a youthful Jane Austen character dressed in jeans.
    “Something old,” she said, holding up the book for his view. “Angela Thirkell!”
    “Anything on the rare books shelf that I haven’t seen?”
    “I have something coming next week, you’ll find it uncommonly egregious.”
    “Give me a clue.”
    “Oh, I’d like it to be…”—she thought for a moment—“a peripeteia.”
    “Aha,” he said. “Call me when it comes in. And by the way, a friend of ours is moving to town in June, he’ll be needing a job. If you hear of anything…”
    “What are his skills?” Hope adjusted her tortoiseshell-rim glasses.
    The truth about George Gaynor would be out the moment he hit town, so Father Tim might as well start the ball rolling.
    “Do you remember the Man in the Attic?”
    “Why, yes! Who could forget? And he’s coming to live in Mitford ?” Her eyes fairly shone.
    If she was this excited about a convicted jewel thief living among them, he thought, maybe the rest of the village would feel the same way. In truth, the