No. 17 Gough Square, however, isn't _always_ forlorn. There are afternoons when merry tea parties of twentieth-century men and women gather in the garret, or in the "Pink" room sacred to those long ago tea parties when Hannah Williams entertained the Doctor's friends. There are, too, evenings when members of the Johnsonian Club, literary folk, or societies given over to the study of London lore, meet for discussion or conviviality. I hope the Doctor doesn't resent the intrusion: I don't think he does, for hospitality was one of his distinguishing traits. Mrs. Darling suggested we should go back by the way we came. She feared the magnetic power of The Red Lion, coupled with my propensity for rotating. And so we turned to the right and followed our noses until they brought us out into the bustle of Fleet Street and the sight of the dark archway leading to Middle Temple Lane under the jutting windows of Prince Henry's room. At the risk of inducing in Mrs. Darling a mood which she describes as the "bloomin' 'ump," I suggested over the tea-cups that, being on the spot, it would only be seemly to visit poor "Goldy's" grave in the Temple. She said she was in "good sperets" this afternoon and thought she could bear it. Poor Goldy! it seems from the accounts one reads of his end that it was his humble friends who grieved most for him. Neither Johnson nor Reynolds nor Burke nor Garrick followed him to the grave, and Boswell, writing to Johnson on June 24th (Goldsmith died on April 4th), says, "You have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," to which Johnson replied, "Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told, more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted." Darkness had fallen when we left the tearooms, and people were hurrying through the Temple on their way home from work. The gas lamps shone on the windows of the circular end of the Temple Church, giving them a frosty sort of glitter, and no one but ourselves heeded the turning which leads to the poet's tomb. The little corner where he lies was deserted and silent, and the inscription on the tombstone could be deciphered easily by the light of the gas lamp near. There is so little of it to read:-- "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith. Born November 10th, 1728, died April 4th, 1774." As I read it I thought of his own words: "Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom." "This dream of life." Is he _awake_ now? An idea occurs to me, Agatha: the idea that these ghosts enjoy a visit to their old haunts in the same fashion that we enjoy trying to reconstruct their past, but they are only allowed to return during those moments when someone in this life thinks of them. If this is so, _I_ must be much sought after on the other side, and my obsession with the past is accounted for.