ch, and,
turning my head, observed Miss Bellingham deep in thought.

"What do you think of it?" I asked.

"It seems very complete and conclusive," she replied. And then, with a
sigh, she murmured: "Poor old Uncle John! How horrid it sounds to talk
of him in this cold-blooded, business-like way, as 'the testator,' as if
he were nothing but a sort of algebraical sign."

"There isn't much room for sentiment, I suppose, in the proceedings of
the Probate Court," I replied. To which she assented, and then asked:
"Who is this lady?"

"This lady" was a fashionably dressed young woman who had just bounced
into the witness-box and was now being sworn. The preliminaries being
finished, she answered Miss Bellingham's question and Mr. Loram's by
stating that her name was Augustina Gwendoline Dobbs, and that she was
housemaid to Mr. George Hurst, of "The Poplars," Eltham.

"Mr. Hurst lives alone, I believe?" said Mr. Loram.

"I don't know what you mean by that," Miss Dobbs began; but the
barrister explained:

"I mean that I believe he is unmarried?"

"Well, and what about it?" the witness demanded tartly.

"I am asking you a question."

"I know that," said the witness viciously; "and I say that you've no
business to make any such insinuations to a respectable young lady when
there's a cook-housekeeper and a kitchenmaid living in the house, and
him old enough to be my father----"

Here his lordship flattened his eyelids with startling effect, and Mr.
Loram interrupted: "I make no insinuations. I merely ask, Is your
employer, Mr. Hurst, an unmarried man, or is he not?"

"I never asked him," said the witness sulkily.

"Please answer my question--yes or no?"

"How can I answer your question? He may be unmarried or he may not. How
do I know? I'm not a private detective."

Mr. Loram directed a stupefied gaze at the witness, and in the ensuing
silence a plaintive voice came from the bench:

"Is the point material?"

"Certainly, my lord," replied Mr. Loram.

"Then, as I see that you are calling Mr. Hurst, perhaps you had better
put the question to him. He will probably know."

Mr. Loram bowed, and as the judge subsided into his normal state of coma
he turned to the triumphant witness.

"Do you remember anything remarkable occurring on the twenty-third of
November the year before last?"

"Yes. Mr. John Bellingham called at our house."

"How did you know he was Mr. John Bellingham?"

"I didn't; but he said he was,