Virginia from New Jersey, who would rather we not use her name for reasons that will become apparent, thought the Vineyard was quite beautiful when she visited last week. But it wasn’t the harbor or the lighthouse or the gingerbread houses that Virginia found “so beautiful it made me cry.” That aspect of the Island only became clear to her after she was gone.

Virginia was one of the scores of tourists who pour out of buses each day to see Edgartown on foot, many of them traveling alone for the first time, many seeing the Vineyard for the first time, and most of them hungry when the bus drops them at the visitor center around lunchtime.

Virginia found herself at Among the Flowers, a cafe tucked near the harborfront. “We were so busy that day,” recalls Polly Toomey, who has been at the cafe since 1989; this is her eighth season as co-owner with her husband, Patrick. So busy that when a waitress named Tabitha Foote found an unmarked envelope as she cleared a table, she had no time to discuss it before putting it aside in a safe place; she saw what was in it and expected the customer would come back for it soon.

Virginia was back in Hyannisport before she realized the envelope was missing. By the time she called the cafe, Tabitha’s shift was over and no one there knew about the envelope in the cupboard. The tour guide told Virginia she could kiss whatever was in that envelope goodbye. The unmarked envelope — “it had absolutely no identification at all,” she laments — held all of Virginia’s money (which, thank you very much, she knows was not very wise and please don’t tell her son she was so foolish).

The next day another waitress, Maggie Brogan, found the envelope in the cupboard and noticed it held a fat wad of $20 bills. She asked what it was doing there and next thing you know, Virginia got the call that her money was safe. How did she want it returned? She insisted that $100 be taken for the cafe owners and staff who did not take a cent of her untraceable cash stash, but they refused, repeatedly. Polly says the energy in the restaurant when they heard about Virginia getting her money back was reward enough.

“I’m from New Jersey,” Virginia said to emphasize her disbelief, adding that despite her prayers to Saint Anthony she wasn’t optimistic. “But by Saturday, I had that check,” she marvels, for $864.32. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

It sure is.

— Lauren Martin