Edna waved her hands.  "Excuse me young folk!  I have a story to tell and then you can go back to your talking."   She had moved to the front of the semi-circle and held a picture in her hands.  It was of a beautiful, but older middle aged woman in old fashioned clothing.  Like many older pictures, she was not smiling.  Her serious pale blue eyes stared at the assembled group.<br/><br/>"This is Miss Katherine Sallade!  She is the original owner of this house and, if you believe rumor, she is your real host!  It is said that she walks the shores of Lake Michigan even now, seeking her lost love, but she has also been seen in this very house.  This parlor was where she would entertain her sowing and reading circles.  It was here that she should have entertained her gentleman callers, but refused.<br/><br/>As the story goes, she was a beautiful young woman who was rejected every suitor who approached her brother for her hand in marriage.  For ten years he tried to make a match for her, but finally, he gave up and set her up in a house of her own.  For twenty five years she lived there virtually alone, with no company but her faithful maid French maid Maida.<br/><br/>It is said that she would refuse to eat meat of any kind, but that her maid would buy her pigs blood from the butchers.  No one knows what she did with this blood.  It was also said that she often was seen wearing mens clothing or even spotted nude, in the upper windows of the house.<br/><br/>As the story goes, Katherine was a bit of a night owl and liked to wander the shores of the lake in the wee hours of the morning.  For many years, she was rarely seen by the light of day.  Some fishermen and towns folk reported that she would sometimes met a man during her walks. He always seemed to appear along the lake, sitting on the rocks.  Whenever they would approach Katherine and her mysterious man, he would seem to vanish, as if he had slipped off into the lake.  Her brother tried to find the truth of the rumors and even considered institutionalizing her, but loved her to much to do so.<br/><br/>When she was in her early fifties, she climbed to the top of the lighthouse and leaped to her death.  She was crushed on the rocks below and her body was washed out into the lake.  Some say she did this because her maid betrayed her and got married and moved away.  Others said that it had something to do with the mysterious man from the sea.  No one is sure and she did not leave a note behind her, though her cry still echoes over the rocky coast late at night.<br/><br/>So tonight, as you sleep snug in your beds, listen for any creaks and voices!  Katherine herself may visit you!<br/><br/>OOC:  Sorry to step on your lines, but I promised that I would post this, and I am afraid of wet noodles.