D. H. Lawrence's uncanny and erotic story of a family haunted by devastating bad luck which can only be dispelled by the visitation of a mysterious ghost, who spreads happiness wherever she goes.

When the narrator goes to visit his old and much beloved friend Carlotta and her husband Luke, who are weighed down by the catastrophic deaths of their three children, he finds that they are burdened also by the vexed and sexually frustrated spirit of the dead wife of another of their house guests.

Over the course of the story, they find a way to calm the malicious dead wife and awaken the good ghost, whose nighttime visit to the narrator is both erotically charged and healing in its own way.