Here's another twist on the ghost story: the benevolent spirit, as evidenced in the somewhat slight but innovative "The Shell of Sense" (?)in the Library of America "American Fantastic Tales." This story narrated from the POV of the ghost of spirit; it begins in the bedroom, the spirit (a woman) looking on, finding the room slightly changed, different than she would have left it. Obviously, from the context - this anthology made up mostly of ghost/vampire/madness stories - we know pretty quickly that the narrator is a dead woman. Might have been more effective to come across the story in a magazine and be left puzzled for a few pages. Once we get our bearings in the story, it's pretty straightforward - she makes her presence known - a cold, misty fog it seems - to her sister and her widowed husband, and gently brings them together, finding some kind of peace for herself. Sweet. The story doesn't dwell or really explore the potential darker aspects: would have been a much harder-edged story if the spirit felt anger or jealousy or pain, for example, or if her haunting had inadvertently driven the couple apart. This trope of benevolent spirits has appeare a lot in recent books and, especially films (Spoiler alert here!), such as the terrific Sixth Sense (will Shmaylyan ever make another good movie?), the Lovely Bones, all the Twilight movies, Ghost, et al. Still, benevolent ghost stories remain a subgenre, a palliative for kids scared in the night. If ghosts were good we wouldn't read about them.