iron-hooped keg out of his gig. He insisted on her tasting the contents,
to make sure it was the same delicious article, and, when they had each
of them drunk three more glasses, he said as he was going away:

"Well, you know when it is all gone there is more left; don't be modest,
for I shall not mind. The sooner it is finished the better pleased I
shall be."

Four days later he came again. The old woman was outside her door cutting
up the bread for her soup.

He went up to her and put his face close to hers, so that he might smell
her breath; and when he smelt the alcohol he felt pleased.

"I suppose you will give me a glass of the Special?" he said. And they
had three glasses each.

Soon, however, it began to be whispered abroad that Mother Magloire was
in the habit of getting drunk all by herself. She was picked up in her
kitchen, then in her yard, then in the roads in the neighborhood, and she
was often brought home like a log.

The innkeeper did not go near her any more, and, when people spoke to him
about her, he used to say, putting on a distressed look:

"It is a great pity that she should have taken to drink at her age, but
when people get old there is no remedy. It will be the death of her in
the long run."

And it certainly was the death of her. She died the next winter. About