Michael Malone - Weebly

chance to explain it to Chin, we've been so rushed, and
then Night runs off!" Miss Lattice kept busy as she
spoke. "And you see we'd already planned on our
dinner for this evening and then I just didn't want for her
to wait out there with no idea what might happen to
her."
Judith was confused. "Perhaps I misunderstood. I
had just assumed that she'd want to go to Argyle, or
arrange to be at their home when—oh, watch out!" She
reached across the counter at a cup that had slid from
Miss Lattice's nervous hand. It smashed on the floor.
"Oh, your cup, I'm sorry. It's broken."
The shopkeeper dropped the pieces into a trash
basin. "Oh, it doesn't matter a bit." She smiled. In cups
and saucers, if not in companionship, Prudence Lattice,
heiress to a bankrupt china factory, would always be
rich. The myriad crates of crockery that had escaped
the liquidation of her father's substance were now in
service to all Dingleyans who frequented the Tea
Shoppe. Thus, chinaware supported the last Lattice still;
no longer sold, but served to customers. It was the one
commodity she felt she had in sufficient supply.