Mma Makutsi gave a nonchalant wave of her hand. “You have to move on, Mma. That is well known.”

Mma Ramotswe found herself agreeing. “Of course,” she replied. “People are always moving on. You can’t stand still.” It was true, she supposed: people did move on and often used that expression to justify all sorts of questionable conduct. Husbands, in particular, had a tendency to move on when they reached a certain age and felt their youth slipping away from them. They moved on from their wives. And disloyal employees moved on too, to better-paid jobs, even when they had been trained at the expense of their existing employer. There was, indeed, a lot of moving on.

And although she had glibly remarked that you could not stand still, was this actually true, or was it a hollow axiom, as false and misleading as any other trite saying? Why should one not stand still, if the position in which one found oneself standing was a satisfactory and comfortable one? She felt no need, no need at all, to move on from being Mma Ramotswe, of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, wife of that great mechanic, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni himself had never moved on from anything, as far as she could ascertain, and would have been horrified were it to be suggested that he might do so. She imagined saying to him over the breakfast table, “We must move on, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. We really must.” He would look at his watch and say, “Yes, my goodness, Mma Ramotswe, look at the time. I must get to the garage.”

And here was Mma Makutsi moving on from her old glasses and wearing this rather disconcertingly small, if highly fashionable, pair of blue ones. It was a very disorientating start to the day. She would get used to her assistant’s new appearance, but for the time being she would ask Mma Makutsi to put on the kettle and make the first morning cup of tea. Or the second, if one counted the cup of bush tea that Mma Ramotswe always enjoyed when she rose and walked around her garden while the sun floated gently above the horizon with its smiling; its benediction.

Mma Makutsi got up from her desk to put on the kettle. Mma Ramotswe saw—could not help spotting—that when Mma Makutsi spooned the tea into the teapot she missed, or partly missed, and some of the tea fell onto the floor. The ants would remove that; a tiny tea party for them, down in their miniature world. But Mma Ramotswe noticed it, and became thoughtful.