necklace was visible through the little opening in the _dhoti_ near the
right shoulder. She was resting her hands on the backs of the chairs and
the fingers were nearly totally out of focus, but a ring on the right
ring-finger was clearly visible. She looked like a handsome young woman
of twenty-two, short and thin. One of the ear-rings was also clearly
visible, although the face itself was slightly out of focus. One thing,
and probably the funniest thing, that we overlooked then but observed
afterwards, was that immediately behind the three ladies was a barred
window. The two ladies, who were one on each side, covered up the bars
to a certain height from the bottom with their bodies, but the lady in
the middle was partly transparent because the bars of the window were
very faintly visible through her. This fact, however, as I have said
already, we did not observe then. We only laughed at Jones and tried to
assure him that he was either drunk or asleep. At this moment Smith of
our office walked in, removing the trouser clips from his legs.

Smith took the unmounted photograph, looked at it for a minute, turned
red and blue and green and finally very pale. Of course, we asked him
what the matter was and this was what he said:

"The third lady in the middle was my first wife, who has been dead these
eight years. Before her death she asked me a number of times to have her
photograph taken. She used to say that she had a presentiment that she
might die early. I did not believe in her presentiment myself, but I did
not object to the photograph. So one day I ordered the carriage and
asked her to dress up. We intended to go to a good professional. She
dressed up and the carriage was ready, but as we were going to start
news reached us that her mother was dangerously ill. So we went to see
her mother instead. The mother was very ill, and I had to leave her
there. Immediately afterwards I was sent away on duty to another station