The old-fashioned ghost-story was always terrifying and ghastly;
something that made people afraid to go to bed, or to look over their
shoulders, or to enter a room in the dark. It dealt with apparitions
in a white sheet, and clanking chains, and dreadful faces that peered
out from behind the window curtains in a haunted chamber. And the more
blood-curdling it was, the more keenly people enjoyed it--until they
were left alone, and then they were apt to wish that they had been
reading Robinson Crusoe or Alison's History of Europe instead. Now the
present book embodies an attempt to write a _cheerful_ ghost-story; a
story in which the ghostly element is of a friendly and pleasant
character, and sheds a sense of happiness and sunshine over the entire
life of the ghost-seer. Whether the author has succeeded in doing so
will be for his readers to decide. It is only necessary to add that he
has not introduced a single supernormal incident that has not occurred
and been authenticated in the recorded experiences of persons lately
or still alive.

* * * * *




Austin and His Friends

Chapter the First


It was rather a beautiful old house--the house where Austin lived.