Louisa May Alcott

A Modern Cinderella Louisa May Alcott

The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that domestic purgatory on a summer day, -the kitchen. There were vines about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories of wasted temper, time, and toil