'When my eldest brother, the father of the late Dulî Sukul, who was so long a native collector under you in this district, died about twenty years ago at Sihôrâ, a Lodhî woman, who resided two miles distant in the village of Khitolî, which has been held by our family for several generations, declared that she would burn herself with him on the funeral pile; that she had been his wife in three different births, had already burnt herself with him three times, and had to burn with him four times more. She was then sixty years of age, and had a husband living [of] about the same age. We were all astounded when she came forward with this story, and told her that it must be a mistake, as we were Brahmans, while she was a Lodhî. She said that there was no mistake in the matter; that she, in the last birth, resided with my brother in the sacred city of Benares, and one day gave a holy man who came to ask charity salt, by mistake, instead of sugar, with his food. That, in consequence, he told her she should, in the next birth, be separated from her husband, and be of inferior caste; but that, if she did her duty well in that state, she should be reunited to him in the following birth. We told her that all this must be a dream, and the widow of my brother insisted that, if she were not allowed to burn herself, the other should not be allowed to take her place. We prevented the widow from ascending the pile, and she died at a good old age only two years ago at Sihôrâ. My brother's body was burned at Sihôrâ, and the poor Lodhî woman came and stole one handful of the ashes, which she placed in her bosom, and took back with her to Khitolî. There she prevailed upon her husband and her brother to assist her in her return to her former husband and caste as a Brahman. No soul else would assist them, as we got the then native chief to prohibit it; and these three persons brought on their own heads the pile, on which she seated herself, with the ashes in her bosom. The husband and his brother set fire to the pile, and she was burned.'[19] 'And what is now your opinion, after a lapse of twenty years?' 'Why, that she had really been the wife of my brother; for at the pile she prophesied that my nephew Dulî should be, what his grandfather had been, high in the service of the Government, and, as you know, he soon after became so.' 'And what did your father think?' 'He was so satisfied that she had been the wife of his eldest son in a former birth, that he defrayed all the expenses of her funeral ceremonies, and had them all observed with as much magnificence as those of any member of the family. Her tomb is still to be seen at Khitolî, and that of my brother at Sihôrâ.'