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glass jars. "She's been a good little girl this morning."
    "You'll spoil her," Fanny objected.
    Titus didn't even look up. "Daddy's pretty little blondy deserves to be spoiled. What kind do you want, Maybelle baby? The red or the white?"
    "I want both!" Maybelle declared loudly.
    "Titus—" Fanny's tone was threatening, but her husband paid no notice.
    "Then both you shall have," Maybelle's father told her. "One for now and one for later."
    As Titus Penny filled each of his daughter's small pudgy hands with candy, Fanny turned back to Amelia, shaking her head disapprovingly. "I just don't know what to do with Titus. He just thinks the sun rises and sets on Maybelle."
    Having grown used to having his wife speak about him as if he weren't present, Titus paid no visible notice to the women's discussion. But, of course, he plainly heard every word.
    "Men just have no sense about children," Amelia said as she nodded with understanding. "Dear Mr. Sparrow, God rest his soul, would have allowed Jedwin to follow his own nature if I hadn't put my foot down. Fathers just don't think as clearly about their children's future as mothers do."
    Amelia looked at the happy child, her mouth stuffed with candy.
    "Mr. Penny thinks only to make Maybelle smile today. It never occurs to him how difficult it will be to find someone to marry her if she becomes ill-favored and gluttonous."
    "She don't have to marry a soul," Titus Penny interrupted with displeasure. "She can stay right here and work in the store till her dying day. I'd be happy if she'd just brighten the life of her daddy in his old age."
    Turning his attention to Maybelle, Titus heightened his voice to a childish decibel. "You want to just stay home and take care of your daddy when you grow up?''
    Her mouth still filled with candy, Maybelle couldn't reply but nodded her head enthusiastically.
    Fanny and Amelia glanced at each other with understanding.
    "I'd best take her home," Fanny said with a sigh. She reached for her daughter's hand. When the young girl grasped hers, Fanny made a disapproving sound. "You are always so sticky!"
    Maybelle shrugged with unconcern and allowed herself to be led out the front door.
    As he watched his wife and child leaving, Titus Penny turned his attention to Amelia. "Would you care for a piece of candy yourself, ma'am?"
    Amelia wasn't even tempted. Her bad tooth was already aching this morning, and she'd learned from experience that hot drinks or sugar could make it painful enough to send her to bed.
    "No thank you, Mr. Penny," she said. "I am not some child to be bribed by sweets."
    Penny nodded, in unhappy agreement. "Here's that roll of white bunting you wanted."
    Amelia walked to the counter and fingered the material, considering. A movement on the far side of the room caught Penny's attention. Seeing Cora Briggs, he started.
    Amelia looked up at him curiously.
    "Fanny said that you allow her to trade here," she whispered too quietly for anyone else to hear.
    Titus flushed darkly. "I'm the only grocer in town. I can't turn her away and allow her to starve."
    Amelia considered his words casually as she considered the bolt of white cloth. "Perhaps if she couldn't buy food, she'd move on."
    Titus looked skeptical. "Where would she move, Miz Sparrow? She ain't got no folks that we know of, no money to speak of, and she owns that house of hers free and clear."
    Eyeing him again, more critically, Amelia said, "She must have some money or she wouldn't be able to trade here."
    Again Titus's face blazed with embarrassment. "I don't give her a nickel of credit," he hedged carefully.
    "See that you don't," Amelia's tone was louder and as deceivingly pleasant as her words were threatening. "I'll take this bolt, Mr. Penny, and a half-dozen needles, if you please."
    Titus hurriedly wrapped Amelia's parcels. Guiltily he glanced several times at Cora, who continued to browse through the store with feigned unconcern. When he'd tied Mrs. Sparrow's purchases together,