Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) The Haunted Homestead _A NOVEL_ BY MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH Author of "Ishmael," "Retribution," "The Bridal Eve," "A Noble Lord," "The Deserted Wife," "Unknown," "The Lady of the Isle," "The Bride's Fate," "Victor's Triumph," "The Wife's Victory," etc. CHICAGO M. A. DONOHUE & CO. THE HAUNTED HOMESTEAD. A residence for woman, child, or man, A dwelling-place--and yet no habitation; A house, but under some prodigious ban Of excommunication.--HOOD. In childhood I always had a fearless faith in ghosts. I desired before all sights to see them, and threw myself in the way of meeting them whenever and wherever there seemed the slightest possibility of so doing. Whenever there were mysterious sounds heard in the night, I listened with breathless interest, arose from the bed in silent eagerness, and went stealing on tiptoe through the dark house in the hopes of meeting the ghosts. Once I met a severe blow on the nose from the sharp edge of an open door, and once a tom cat, who made one spring from the top of the pantry shelves upon my head, and another thence through a broken window pane. I would have liked to fancy him a ghostly cat, only I knew him too well for our own "Tom," the cunningest thief that ever run on four feet. Another time, perambulating through the house at midnight, I surprised a burglar, who, mistaking me in the darkness for the master of the house, the watch, or an ambush, jumped straight over my head (or past me, I hardly knew which in my astonishment), and made his escape at the back door. But I must say that I never met a ghost, or even a "vestige" of a ghost until--but I think I will begin at the beginning and tell you the whole story.