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.
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