"You've got a fine boy there," Patrick McGillicuddy said, squeezing Sylvia's hand as she stood in the front hall. "We're glad to have him in the family." He didn't particularly talk like an Irishman. Looking Mary Jane up and down, he went on, "And I think Connor and Larry and Paul will be glad to have his sister in the family." His sons grinned.

"I'm glad to have her in the family, too," said Constance's sister, whose name was Liz.

"Good for you, dear," her father said, "but I don't think you're glad the way your brothers are." The young men's grins grew wider. Liz look confused. Whatever the McGillicuddys were going to tell her about the birds and bees, they didn't seem to have told her yet.

The way Connie looked at George, Jr., and the way she clung to him whenever she got the chance, told Sylvia everything she needed to know on that score. Her eyes met Margaret McGillicuddy's. The two women shared a moment of perfect understanding. Enjoy it while it lasts, their faces both said, because it doesn't usually last long.

"One of these days, I'm going to read your book," Patrick McGillicuddy told Sylvia. She nodded politely; she'd heard that a good many times. He went on, "You made a lot of people proud when you went down to the CSA and did what you did. Could have been me you were paying that sub skipper back for, easy as not."

She could tell he spoke from the heart. "Thank you," she said. "That means a lot to me, especially since George tells me you were in the Navy, too."

"Only luck I'm still here." He suddenly seemed to remember he had a drink in his hand. Raising it, he said, "And we've got luck right here in the room with us. To Connie and George!" He drank. So did Sylvia. So did everyone else.

A nother lonely winter night. Lucien Galtier took some fried chicken off the stove. He would never make a good cook, but he'd got to the point where he didn't mind eating what he made. After he finished supper, he washed dishes and tidied up as meticulously as he could. Marie would have expected it of him, and he didn't want to let her down. It wasn't as good a job as she would have done, but he hoped she would give him credit for making the effort.

After he put the last plate in the drainer-no matter what his wife had done, he couldn't make himself waste time drying dishes-he left the kitchen and went out to the parlor: the living room, people were calling it these days. He turned on the wireless and waited for sound to start coming out of it.

As music began to play, Lucien tapped the cabinet. "This is a marvelous machine," he said, talking to himself as he often did while alone. "It makes me feel I have company, even when I have none."

The music stopped. The people on the wireless began to try to sell him laundry soap. He listened to the pitch with half an ear while he lit a cigarette. Not all the company was welcome. Another little skit proclaimed the virtues of a brand of tobacco different from the one he smoked. He shrugged and took another puff.

More music came out of the speaker-a concertina solo. He grinned. "Welcome to Voyageurs," the announcer said. Lucien settled down to listen. All of Quebec settled down to listen at half past seven on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. The comedy about fur traders and Indians was the most popular show in the country.

One of the Indians started complaining the voyageur had cheated him. That was a running gag on the show-in fact, the Indian got the better of the voyageur every time. He also spoke French not like an Indian but like a Jewish peddler, which made things funnier and made them funny in a different way.

As usual, everything turned out all right-and turned out absurd-within the appointed half hour. After the show was done, Lucien turned to a station that played music, poured himself some apple brandy, and settled down with a French translation of an American story: a woman who'd gone down into the Confederate States to avenge her husband.

It was a strange kind of French, extraordinarily terse and to the point. He wondered if the English was the same. Then he wondered if he could make enough sense out of written English to find out. He doubted it.

"But I can ask my son-in-law," he said. He had to remind himself Dr. Leonard O'Doull was a born anglophone. Whenever the two of them talked together, they spoke French. O'Doull sounded more like a Quebecois every year, too, losing bit by bit the Parisian accent with which he'd originally learned his second language.

At about a quarter to nine, someone knocked on the door. Wondering who could be mad enough to pay him a call at this hour, Lucien put down the book and went to find out. It wasn't snowing at the moment, but it had been and it would be, and it probably was below zero outside.

When he opened the door, his younger son waited there. "Oh, hello, Georges," Lucien said. "I might have known it would be you. What are you doing here so late?"

"Well, you wouldn't expect me to leave my house before Voyageurs was done, would you?" Georges asked reasonably. He stepped into the farmhouse where he'd been born and grown up. Lucien closed the door behind him to stop letting out precious heat. He went on, "I am not a rich man, to have a wireless set in my automobile. I am lucky to have an automobile."

"I've got the applejack out, to settle me before I go to bed," Lucien said. "Would you like some?"

"Yes, thank you, mon pere. It will warm me up after the chilly drive over, the motorcar also lacking a heater. Ah, merci." Georges accepted the glass and took a cautious sip-with bootleg applejack, you never knew what you were getting till you got it. He nodded. "This is a good batch. Strong enough to feel, but not strong enough to burn off the roof of your mouth."

"Yes, I thought the same," Lucien agreed. "Is that why you came over-to drink my brandy, I mean?"

"As good a reason as any, eh? And better than most, I think." Georges looked around. He lit a cigarette, then sighed and shook his head. "Whenever I come here, I keep expecting chere Maman to come out of the kitchen and say hello."

That made Lucien pour his own glass full again. "Whenever I come in the house, son, I expect the same thing. But what I expect and what I get"-he sighed-"they are not the same."

"Calisse," Georges said-almost more of an invocation of the holiness of the chalice than the usual Quebecois curse. He saw the book Lucien had been reading. "I went through that. A brave woman."

"I remember something about it in the papers when it happened," Lucien said. "Not much, though, and of course there was no wireless then. Strange how we've come to take it for granted in just a few years' time."

"My next-door neighbor visited me last fall," Georges said. "It was a Wednesday night, and he listened to Voyageurs. He had no electricity on his farm till then, did Philippe, though he does well for himself. He never saw the need. A week after that, he went out and got it so he could have a wireless set for himself. A wireless show decided him."

"I believe you," Lucien said. "Is this why you came, then? You wanted to tell me about your neighbor and the wireless and electricity?"

"I came because I wanted to visit my father," Georges replied. "Sour as you are, it could be that you find this hard to believe. If so… well, too bad. My neighbor Philippe cannot visit his father, for he has no father to visit. I am lucky, and I take advantage of my luck." He hefted his glass. "And if I get a knock of applejack in the side, this is not so bad, either."

Lucien looked down into the pale yellow liquid filling his own glass. Slowly, he said, "I am going to tell you something I thought I would never say to you in all my days. You are a scamp, you know, and a rogue, and a fellow who gets away with everything he possibly can and then with one thing more."