claimed the colonel’s lady in quitting them, when she perceived her husband was insensible to her representations.
According to the orders which he received, the sexton one night brought a skull in good preservation.
The morning of the day destined for the representation, Calzolaro went into the adjacent forest to rehearse the dialogue which he was to have with the death’s head. He considered in what way to place the head, so as to avoid all suspicion of the answers given by it being uttered by a person concealed. In the mean while the pastor arrived at the spot from a neighbouring hamlet, where he had been called to attend a dying person: and believing that the interposition of Providence was visible in this accidental meeting, the good man stopped, in order once again to exhort Calzolaro to agree to an accommodation with the heiress.
“I yesterday,” said he, “received a letter from her, in which she declares that, rather than any disrespect should be paid to your father’s last will and testament, she will give up to you half the inheritance to which she is thereby entitled. Ought you not to prefer this to a process at law, the issue of which is doubtful, and which at all events will never do you credit?”
Calzolaro persisted in declaring that the law
