She did not see Mrs. Grewe again, she did not want to see her.  It was not until from the telephone girl she learned that the charming young widow was gone, that Ethel went up to her new home.  In a little while her furniture would begin to pour in, but as yet the rooms were empty, flooded with warm sunshine.  She looked about and thought of the life which had been here, and then of Mrs. Grewe’s advice and her last smiling admonition.  She could almost hear the voice.

“Is every place I live in to be haunted?” Ethel asked herself.  And then with a humorous little scowl:  “Now see here, young woman, the sooner you learn that every apartment in this city has a complete equipment of ghosts, the better it will be for you.  I don’t care who lived here, nor how she lived nor what she said.  I don’t need her advice, and her life is not to affect mine in the slightest!” She stopped short.  Of whom was she speaking, Mrs. Grewe or Amy?  There were two of them now!  Both had given her advice, and in each case the life portrayed had been very much alike, so much so as to be rather disturbing.  Things were certainly queer in this town!

“Very well, my dears,” she said amiably, “if I must be haunted, it’s much more gay and sociable to have two instead of one.  Remember tea will be served at five, and from the present outlook there’s little chance of our being disturbed by the intrusion of any live woman in New York.”

“At least the ghosts are friendly.”  She suddenly compressed her lips and looked about:  “However!” She went to the telephone in the hall:  “Please hurry up those porters!  I’m up here waiting to begin!”

And in the days that followed, she was far too engrossed in “settling” to spare any time for brooding on phantoms.  “A home of my own and a life of my own, to be lived with my own husband!” But when at last they were settled, and Joe in a dear, genial mood had gone about admiring, and taking no notice apparently of the scarcity of Amy’s things—­he turned to Ethel with an air which was meant to be easy and natural: 

“Well, now that we’re taking a fresh start, the time has come for a little talk.”

“What about?” she asked, endeavouring to make her smile as easy as his.

“It will take about one minute.”  His gruff voice was low and kind.  “I’m not going to force my friends on you.  If you want to make friends of your own, go ahead.  And when you get them let me know—­and they’ll be mine, too, if I have to break a leg in the effort.  I’ll dance in front of them, so to speak, until they’re all enchanted.  But in the meantime, on your side, I want you to let me down easy with these people I once knew.  I don’t want to hurt them or be a cad.  A few I may keep in touch with for years.”

“Fanny!” flashed into Ethel’s mind.

“And all I ask of you is this.  You’ll soon be going away for the summer.  Let’s do the decent thing—­just once—­and have a little party here.  I give you my word we won’t do it again.”