Next day, Sunday, February 6, Mrs. Bissett received, what was not
usual--a letter from her sister in India, Mrs. Clifton, dated January 20.
Mrs. Clifton described a place in a native State, where she had been at a
great 'function,' in certain gardens beside a river. She added that they
were going to another place for a certain purpose, 'and then we go into
camp till the end of February.' One of Mr. Clifton's duties is to direct
the clearing of wood preparatory to the formation of the camp, as in Miss
Angus's crystal picture.[15] The sceptical Mrs. Cockburn heard of these
coincidences, and an idea occurred to her. She wrote to her daughter, who
has been mentioned, and asked whether, on Wednesday, February 2, she had
been lying on a sofa in her bed-room, with bare feet. The young lady
confessed that it was indeed so;[16] and, when she heard how the fact came
to be known, expressed herself with some warmth on the abuse of glass
balls, which tend to rob life of its privacy.

In this case the _prima facie_ aspect of things is that a thought
of Mr. Bissett's about his stockbroker, _dulce ridentem_, somehow
reflected itself into Miss Angus's mind by way of the glass ball, and
was interrupted by a thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter. But
how these thoughts came to display the unknown facts concerning the
garden by the river, the felling of trees for a camp, and the bare feet,
is a question about which it is vain to theorise.[17]

On the vanishing of the jungle scene there appeared a picture of a man in
a dark undress uniform, beside a great bay, in which were ships of war.
Wooden huts, as in a plague district, were on shore. Mr. Bissett asked,
'What is the man's expression?' 'He looks as if he had been giving a lot
of last orders.' Then appeared 'a place like a hospital, with five or six
beds--no, berths: it is a ship. Here is the man again.' He was minutely