“The popularity of Denman Thompson’s play of ‘The Old Homestead’ has encouraged Street & Smith, evidently with his permission, to publish a good-sized novel with the same title, set in the same scenes and including the same characters and more too. The book is a fair match for the play in the simple good taste and real ability with which it is written. The publishers are Street & Smith, and they have gotten the volume up in cheap popular form.”—_N. Y. Graphic_, May 29. “Denman Thompson’s play, ‘The Old Homestead,’ is familiar, at least by reputation, to every play-goer in the country. Its truth to nature and its simple pathos have been admirably preserved in this story, which is founded upon it and follows its incidents closely. The requirements of the stage make the action a little hurried at times, but the scenes described are brought before the mind’s eye with remarkable vividness, and the portrayal of life in the little New England town is almost perfect. Those who have never seen the play can get an excellent idea of what it is like from the book. Both are free from sentimentality and sensation, and are remarkably healthy in tone.”—_Albany Express._ “Denman Thompson’s ‘Old Homestead’ has been put into story-form and is issued by Street & Smith. The story will somewhat explain to those who have not seen it the great popularity of the play.”—_Brooklyn Times_, June 8th. “The fame of Denman Thompson’s play, ‘Old Homestead,’ is world-wide. Tens of thousands have enjoyed it, and frequently recall the pure, lively pleasure they took in its representation. This is the story told in narrative form as well as it was told on the stage, and will be a treat to all, whether they have seen the play or not.”—_National Tribune_, Washington, D. C. “Here we have the shaded lanes, the dusty roads, the hilly pastures, the peaked roofs, the school-house, and the familiar faces of dear old Swanzey, and the story which, dramatized, has packed the largest theater in New York, and has been a success everywhere because of its true and sympathetic touches of nature. All the incidents which have held audiences spell-bound are here recorded—the accusation of robbery directed against the innocent boy, his shame, and leaving home; the dear old Aunt Tilda, who has been courted for thirty years by the mendacious Cy Prime, who has never had the courage to propose; the fall of the country boy into the temptations of city life, and his recovery by the good old man who braves the metropolis to find him. The story embodies all that the play tells, and all that it suggests as well.”—_Kansas City Journal_, May 27th. THRICE WEDDED. CHAPTER I. “GO! AND MY WORST CURSES GO WITH YOU!”