The picture, faded but still clear, was of a great fat woman with a crimped fringe of hair, wearing a hooped dress widely bordered in black along the skirt and sleeves. She was seated in a chair that was invisible beneath her great bulk. In her outstretched hands she held two little heaps of misshapen flesh that were not, after all, dolls. “It’s my great-great-grandmother,” said Dauphin. “The babies were twins, and they were stillborn. She had the picture taken before they were buried. They were both boys, and their names were Darnley and Dauphin.”
