is in reality not a suitable house at all; it is only a lodging for two people, and hardly that, for we haven’t even a dining room, which, as you can well imagine, is embarrassing when people come to visit us.  True, we have other rooms upstairs, a large social hall and four small rooms, but there is something uninviting about them, and I should call them lumber rooms, if there were any lumber in them.  But they are entirely empty, except for a few rush-bottomed chairs, and leave a very queer impression, to say the least.  You no doubt think this very easy to change, but the house we live in is—­is haunted.  Now it is out.  I beseech you, however, not to make any reference to this in your answer, for I always show Innstetten your letters and he would be beside himself if he found out what I have written to you.  I ought not to have done it either, especially as I have been undisturbed for a good many weeks and have ceased to be afraid; but Johanna tells me it will come back again, especially if some new person appears in the house.  I couldn’t think of exposing you to such a danger, or—­if that is too harsh an expression—­to such a peculiar and uncomfortable disturbance.  I will not trouble you with the matter itself today, at least not in detail.  They tell the story of an old captain, a so-called China-voyager, and his grand-daughter, who after a short engagement to a young captain here suddenly vanished on her wedding day.  That might pass, but there is something of greater moment.  A young Chinaman, whom her father had brought back from China and who was at first the servant and later the friend of the old man, died shortly afterward and was buried in a lonely spot near the churchyard.  Not long ago I drove by there, but turned my face away quickly and looked in the other direction, because I believe I should otherwise have seen him sitting on the grave.  For oh, my dear mama, I have really seen him once, or it at least seemed so, when I was sound asleep and Innstetten was away from home visiting the Prince.  It was terrible.  I should not like to experience anything like it again.  I can’t well invite you to such a house, handsome as it is otherwise, for, strange to say, it is both uncanny and cozy.  Innstetten did not do exactly the right thing about it either, if you will allow me to say so, in spite of the fact that I finally agreed with him in many particulars.  He expected me to consider it nothing but old wives’ nonsense and laugh about it, but all of a sudden he himself seemed to believe in it, at the very time when he was making the queer demand of me to consider such hauntings a mark of blue blood and old nobility.  But I can’t do it and I won’t, either.  Kind as he is in other regards, in this particular he is not kind and considerate enough toward me.  That there is something in it I know from Johanna and also from Mrs. Kruse.  The latter is our coachman’s wife and always sits holding a black chicken in an overheated room.  This alone is enough to