Mma Ramotswe broke the silence. “What are you doing?” she said simply. It was an entirely reasonable question—the sort of question that any friend or indeed fiancée may ask of another. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at the children. The girl had placed her photograph in a plastic carrier bag that was attached to the side of her wheelchair; the boy was clutching his photograph to his chest, as if Mma Ramotswe might wish to take it from him.

“These are two children from the orphan farm,” stuttered Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “This one is the girl and this one is the boy.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Well!” she said. “So that is it. That is very helpful.”

The girl smiled and greeted Mma Ramotswe politely.

“I am called Motholeli,” she said. “My brother is called Puso. These are the names that we have been given at the orphan farm.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I hope that they are looking after you well, there. Mma Potokwane is a kind lady.”

“She is kind,” said the girl. “Very kind.”

She looked as if she was about to say something else, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni broke in rapidly.

“I have had the children’s photographs taken,” he explained, and turning to the girl, he said: “Show them to Mma Ramotswe, Motholeli.”

The girl propelled her chair forward and passed the photograph to Mma Ramotswe, who admired it.

“That is a very nice photograph to have,” she said. “I have only one or two photographs of myself when I was your age. If ever I am feeling old, I go and take a look at them and I think that maybe I am not so old after all.”

“You are still young,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “We are not old these days until we are seventy—maybe more. It has all changed.”

“That’s what we like to think,” chuckled Mma Ramotswe, passing the photograph back to the girl. “Is Mr J.L.B. Matekoni taking you back now, or are you going to eat in town?”

“We have been shopping,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni blurted out. “We may have one or two other things to do.”

“We will go back to his house soon,” the girl said. “We are living with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni now. We are staying in his house.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni felt his heart thump wildly against his chest. I am going to have a heart attack, he thought. I am going to die now. And for a moment he felt immense regret that he would never marry Mma Ramotswe, that he would go to his grave a bachelor, that the children would be twice orphaned, that Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors would close. But his heart did not stop, but continued to beat, and Mma Ramotswe and all the physical world remained stubbornly there.

Mma Ramotswe looked quizzically at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.