"God bless me!" cried Ferret, addressing Richards, "what a charming Italian accent; and out of Dorsetshire too!" "Dorsetshire, sir?" exclaimed the lady. "Ay, Dorsetshire, to be sure. Why, Mr. Richards, our respected client appears to have forgotten her place of birth! How very extraordinary!" Mr. Richards now interfered, to say that Mr. Ferret was apparently laboring under a strange misapprehension. "This lady," continued he, "is Madame Giulletta Corelli." "Whe--e--e--w!" rejoined Ferret, thrown for an instant off his balance by the suddenness of the confession, and perhaps a little disappointed at so placable a termination of the dispute--"Giulletta Corelli! What is the meaning of this array then?" "I am glad, madam," said I, interposing for the first time in the conversation, "for your own sake, that you have been advised not to persist in the senseless as well as iniquitous scheme devised by the late Mr. Harlowe; but this being the case, I am greatly at a loss to know why either you or these legal gentlemen are here?" The brilliant eyes of the Italian flashed with triumphant scorn, and a smile of contemptuous irony curled her beautiful lip as she replied--"These legal gentlemen will not have much difficulty in explaining my right to remain in my own house." "_Your_ house?" "Precisely, sir," replied Mr. Quillet. "This mansion, together with all other property, real and personal, of which the deceased Henry Harlowe died possessed, is bequeathed by will--dated about a month since--to this lady, Giulletta Corelli." "A will!" exclaimed Mr. Ferret with an explosive shout, and turning to me, whilst his sharp gray eyes danced with irrepressible mirth--"Did I not tell you so?" "Your usual sagacity, Mr. Ferret, has not in this instance failed you. Perhaps you will permit me to read the will? But before I do so," continued Mr. Quillet, as he drew his gold-rimmed spectacles from their morocco sheath--"you will allow me, if you please, to state that the legatee, delicately appreciating the position of the widow, will allow her any reasonable annuity--say five hundred pounds per annum for life." "Will she really though?" cried Mr. Ferret, boiling over with ecstacy. "Madam, let me beg of you to confirm this gracious promise." "Certainly I do." "Capital!--glorious!" rejoined Ferret; and I thought he was about to perform a salutatory movement, that must have brought his cranium into damaging contact with the chandelier under which he was standing. "Is it not delightful? How every one--especially an attorney--loves a generous giver!" Mr. Richards appeared to be rendered somewhat uneasy by these strange demonstrations. He knew Ferret well, and evidently suspected that something was wrong somewhere. "Perhaps, Mr. Quillet," said he, "you had better read the will at once."