Hello, I'm Joanne, and you're listening to a bonus episode called Miriam's Lover by

Lucy Maud Montgomery. You can listen to the whole story and other episodes while enjoying

ad-free listening by becoming a premium member at driftoff.supercast.com, or you can find

the link in the show notes that's driftoff.supercast.com for the month of October. The theme of

the story that I will be reading both on my premium and regular podcast feeds will

lean towards the theme of autumn, ghosts, and Halloween. Nothing too scary, of course, but

just enough to get us in the mood for the fall.

Tonight's storytelling is called Miriam's Lover by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

This story makes us wonder whether ghosts really do exist, and so is always my friend,

settling comfortably under the covers. Take a slow, comfortable breath, and as you exhale,

relax and let go. Allow any tension to just melt away, letting your body sink deeper

and deeper down into the softness of your bed. There is nothing else to do and nowhere

else to be, so just lay back, relax, and enjoy the story.

I had been reading a ghost story to Mrs. Sufton, and I laid it down at the end with a little

shrug of contempt. What utter nonsense, I said. Mrs. Sufton nodded abstractedly above

her fancy work. That is, it is a very commonplace story indeed. I don't believe the spirits

of the departed trouble themselves to revisit the glimpses of the moon for the purpose of

frightening honest mortals, or even for the sake of hanging around the favorite haunts

of their existence in the flesh. If they ever appear, it must be for a better reason

than that. You don't surely think that they ever do appear, I said incredulously. You

have no proof that they do not, my dear. Surely, Mary, I exclaimed, you don't mean to

say that you believe people ever do or can see spirits, ghosts as the word goes. I didn't

...