The dealer wanted an inflated price for a stone from a roof. (inflated: exaggerated, overstated, overblown) Three farthings would have been politic; three pounds might cause a brouhaha. (politic: prudent, tactful, diplomatic; brouhaha: uproar, commotion, hubbub) His client considered the request fatuous. (fatuous: inane, vacuous, silly) Yet the stone had fallen just as her son asked to see the moon, and the coincidence mattered to her.
She recognized her own nonrational attachment. (nonrational: unreasoning, intuitive, instinctive) The dealer's materialism made every fond attachment look like a profitable fetish. (materialism: acquisitiveness, consumerism; fetish: obsession, fixation, mania) With uncommon lucidity she proposed that he keep the stone and sell her the little box in which they had first seen it. (lucidity: clarity, clearness, perspicuity)
He gave her the box. She bought a mirror to go inside. When her son asked to see the moon again, she held the lid over the garden sill and showed him the real thing.