And while they had continued talking, about movies and books, Margot’s hands performed the same compact dance as Mother’s had, and before they stopped to get ready for bed, the sweater she was knitting had become longer and developed a braid pattern.

So if Margot and Mother could do it while talking, by gum Betsy could do it while concentrating. She bit down harder on her captured lip and sped up to three stitches a minute.

She was concentrating so hard that when the door made its electronic sound, she jumped and, dammit, the needle slipped and pulled out of about seven stitches. Before she could figure out what to do, a bony, ice-cold hand covered hers.

She glanced up and saw a stick-thin woman with short dark hair that stuck up in odd-looking curls all over her little head. Like Betty Boop, thought Betsy. Except the face wasn’t Boop’s merry square, it was long and narrow, with deep lines from nostril to mouth. The eyes were dark and intent. The woman suddenly showed bright, patently false teeth, and Betsy wanted to back away, but was held by the icy grip.

“M-may I help you?” she asked.

“No, my dear, may I help you?” said the woman in a chirpy voice that rang as false as the teeth.

“Help me what?” asked Betsy.

“With what you are doing,” said the woman, the smile slipping a trifle, looking pointedly at the knitting and back at Betsy.

“Oh, this. Why, do you know how to knit?”

The woman laughed a genuine laugh. “Of course I do! I know how to do every kind of needlework there is, except sewing canvas into sails. What seems to be the problem with your knitting?”

With a small effort, Betsy managed to free her hands. “It’s not the knitting, exactly. It’s the purling. I just don’t get how to do it. And anyhow, now I’ve spoiled what I was doing, pulling the needle out.”

“Oh, that’s easy to fix.” The woman took the knitting from Betsy’s hands and deftly rethreaded the stitches onto the needle. “See? Now, to purl, you hold the needles like this,” she said, putting them together in what Betsy was sure was the same way she herself had held them while trying to purl. “See, you go through like this, come around like this and off, and through and around and off, and-through-around-and-off.” If she’d continued as slowly as she’d begun, Betsy might have learned something. But she repeated “through and around and off” faster and faster while her hands worked more and more vigorously, until she’d done the row. Then she handed the needles back to Betsy. “Now you try it,” she said briskly.

Betsy took the needles, turned the work around to begin the next row and tried to remember where to poke the empty needle through the first stitch. It went in front, she remembered that, but was it through the same direction as the filled needle was pointing, or the other way?