It was Jane who had lured me to the old house on this bleak afternoon when I should have been sitting over the fire, forgetting my sixty-five years in a novel of youth. Jane, who in her cheery way describes the house as "an excellent lodgement, and most antique physiognomy, quite to our humour; roomy, substantial, commodious, with closets to satisfy any Bluebeard, ..." and who, in an earlier letter on the same subject, says, "I have a great liking to the massive old concern with the broad staircase and abundant accommodation for crockery. But is it not too near the river? And another idea presents itself along with that wainscot--if bugs have been in the house! Must they not have found there as well as the inmates room without end?" I hope, by the way, that the dear lady's fears were unfounded, but judging from her later letters, I have my doubts. How shall I describe to you the effect of that chill, prim room, seen in the light of the bleak winter afternoon! One thing of living beauty alone made a link with the present--a great bunch of tawny yellow and white chrysanthemums which a worshipper had brought to the shrine on this, the birthday, of the great man. We had chosen an auspicious date for our visit, and inspired by the coincidence, I sought to animate the dry bones with life. Over the fireplace hangs a picture in which Jane is represented sitting by the fire in this very apartment, whilst her spouse, attired in a plaid dressing-gown, stands with his back against the mantel. Here is the identical room, the identical tables and chairs, the horsehair sofa and pictures, but the room no more resembles the home-like one in the picture than do dried rose leaves placed between the leaves of a book resemble the scented freshness of freshly plucked velvety petals. Ah, well! the dead cannot live again in _this_ world, and those of us who visit ghosts' houses must leave our more material selves on the doorstep.