Almost before she had said it, Chicot had poured her out another glassful. She wished to refuse, but it was too late, and she drank it very slowly, like she had done the first, and he asked her to have a third. She objected, but he persisted. "It is as mild as milk, you know; I can drink ten or a dozen without any ill effects; it goes down like sugar, and leaves no signs in the head, one would think that it evaporated on the tongue. It is the most wholesome thing you can drink." She took it, for she really wished to have it, but she left half the glass. Then Chicot, in an excess of generosity, said: "Look here, as it is so much to your taste, I will give you a small keg of it, just to show that you and I are still excellent friends." So she took one away with her, feeling slightly overcome by the effects of what she had drunk. The next day the innkeeper drove into her yard, and took a little 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. Chicot 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 Christmas-time she fell down, unconscious, in the snow, and was found dead the next morning. And when Chicot came in for the farm he said: "It was very stupid of her; if she had not taken to drink she might very well have lived for ten years longer." HOW HE GOT THE LEGION OF HONOR Some people are born with a predominant instinct, with some vocation or some desire which has been evoked as soon as they begin to speak or to think.