She can’t explain the light that burned brightly without electricity or the overturned salt dishes on the dining room table, so Anne Holton puts it this way: “I think, well, it’s an old house,“ Holton said in an interview yesterday. “There’s room for her and us.“ “Us” would be Holton, husband, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and their children. “Her” would be the ghost of the Executive Mansion in Richmond.

Middle school kids can make some noise. For an hour yesterday at Richmond’s Binford Middle School, the rumble that comes as 450 or so students stomp their feet and slap their hands was encouraged.

Anne Holton is a former Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court judge. A Kaine—not the one you think—has taken a job with President-elect Barack Obama. First lady Anne Holton, wife of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, is spending two to three days per week in Washington as an unpaid volunteer in the Obama transition office.