Did you ever keep house for friends gone away? If you have not, don't
do it, the place is full of ghosts of live people, this is quite
unfair. No well conducted live person should have a ghost; but there
they are, and their feet go hither and thither making no sound, and
their mouths eat at meals though the food never gets less, and they
talk to you and to each other. You know what they say though there is
no sound, and you get no answer if you speak to them. One does not
really object to it; they are just like the live people in a way;
they have exactly the same ways as the people they seem to be. They
seem to hear your remarks and pass them by; often I fancy you are
like a ghost to them, but one is not sure because if so why do they
listen to you? Still, as I said, one does talk to them--but they don't
answer. Do they expect you to reply to them; mine don't. In the open
air, gardening or filling up time someway, they are not with one so
much; it is at meals mostly. What becomes of them later. When you
come into the place at night the stillness is wonderful either in the
black darkness or with the bright moonlight shadowing everywhere with
wraiths of boughs and plants; but one misses the ghosts; there is only
an open grave; there's nothing in it.
[Illustration: Real Ghosts.]