Yes, it was Maurice, Maurice, from early morn to dewy eve!

But while I was musing, a drama was being acted at the end of the room. The old gentleman was standing on a chair, making heroic efforts to reach a bottle of preserved brandy-cherries placed on the topmost shelf of a cupboard. The bottle had been undisturbed for ten years, and awaited Maurice’s return. In spite of his wife’s dissuasions, grandpa was determined to get and open the bottle in honour of his guest. The old man was straining every nerve and muscle, the little blues were clasping the chair, the old lady looked on in fear and trembling with bated breath and arms stretched out to rescue the hero in case of need. One supreme effort, the prize was seized, and handed down to the now beaming grandma. And what a delicious whiff of sweet bergamot came from the linen in the cupboard!

Maurice’s little embossed silver mug was brought out and filled to the brim.

Yes, Maurice loved cherries.

As grandpa handed me the mug, his mouth watering with epicurean gusto, he whispered, ‘You’re a lucky dog, you don’t get the like of this at the mill. His grandmother preserved them.’

However expert grandma might be in preserving cherries, she had fallen short this time. She had forgotten the sugar. Still, one must make allowance for the vagaries of old age. But I rose to the occasion, set my teeth, and gulped them down without blinking, whispering an aside:

‘Madame, your cherries are—atrocious!’

As I rose to take my leave, the old folks pressed me to continue my true narrative of the exploits of the paragon, but as the light was failing, and the mill ‘only about ten miles’ off, it was time to set out.

The old man also rose.

‘My coat, please, Mamma. I must see him as far as the Square.’

Mamma remarked on the chilliness of the night air, but did not oppose the old man’s whim. As she helped him on with his smart snuff-coloured Spanish coat, with mother-of-pearl buttons, she said in bantering tones:

‘Now, dear, you ’ll promise, won’t you, promise faithfully that you won’t stay out late to-night?’

The old man, not to be outdone, replied with an ‘I-won’t-come-home-till-morning’ air:

‘Yes! No!’

‘Perhaps I will! Perhaps I won’t!’

‘I don’t know! I don’t care!’

‘Don’t wait up, dear! I’ve got the key.’

Then they looked into each other’s eyes and laughed till they cried. The little blues laughed because they laughed, and the canaries twittered to join in the fun.

Between ourselves, I think the cherry brandy had made every one a little ‘breezy’.

It was getting dark when grandpa and I left the house. He was a proud man that evening as he walked through the village arm in arm with the friend of Maurice. How could he be conscious of a little blue protectress following at a distance to bring him home? Grandma, her face beaming, her frame quivering, watched us from the doorstep.