The woman, who had been sitting with a stern and stolid looking face as though wrapped in spiritual meditation, now addressed the girl who it was believed had obeyed the summons of the mother. "Is your name Pearl?" "Yes." "Did you die on such a date and were you eighteen years of age then?" These questions are asked in order to identify her, and to prevent her from being confused with any other vagrant spirit that might have wandered here in order to play a trick upon her.
"Now tell me," the witch continues, "how are you in the world of darkness, and whether you are happy in your life there." "Oh! I am pretty well," is the answer that comes at once in reply to these questions, "but I cannot say that I am very happy. I am continually thinking of how distressed my mother is at my death. I know that she is thinking of me morning, noon and night, and that her heart is full of sorrow because she feels that she will never see me again. With regard to my condition in this gloomy land, it is not all that I could wish, but it is on the whole bearable. I am living in the house that mother had made for me and that was burned at my grave, so that in that respect I have nothing to complain of."
The question of what friends she has made, is answered by the statement that she lives very much alone and that she knows hardly any one, but that her father, who came into the Land of Shadows some time before her, occasionally visits her, though, singular to say, she makes no suggestion about planning to live with him. It would seem from the popular, though somewhat vague ideas on this subject, that relatives keep strictly apart from each other in that mysterious country, and though they do now and again come and see each other, the intimate relationships that they sustained with one another whilst they were on earth are almost entirely broken off in that other country.
Another very important question was now put to her, viz. "Do you find that your grave is dry or wet?" and she at once replied that she has been quite satisfied as far as that is concerned, for that her mother has evidently taken great pains that the rain or running streams from the higher ground above it shall not flow in upon it. It would seem that the Chinese hold that in some mysterious way the condition of the dead is very largely affected by the wetness or dryness of the grave in which they have been buried. This explains the extreme care with which they select the spots in which to lay their friends that have departed this life.