She was a mighty pretty woman, but full of vim and fun and sense.

"It's one of the most curious freaks of memory I ever heard of, Mrs.
Minver," I said.

Then she showed that she was proud of it, though she had called him
silly. "Have you told," she demanded of her husband, "how oddly your
memory behaved about the subject of the picture, too?"

"I have again eaten that particular piece of humble-pie," Minver's
brother replied.

"Well," she said to me, "_I_ think he was simply so possessed with the
awfulness of having lost the picture that all the rest took place
prophetically, but unconsciously."

"By a species of inverted presentiment?" I suggested.

"Yes," she assented, slowly, as if the formulation were new to her, but
not unacceptable. "Something of that kind. I never heard of anybody else
having it."

Minver had got his pipe alight, and was enjoying it. "_I_ think Joe was
simply off his nut, for the time being."




IV