Louisa May Alcott

A Modern Cinderella Louisa May Alcott

Short stories by the author of "Little Women", including A MODERN CINDERELLA: OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE, DEBBY'S DEBUT, BROTHERS, and NELLY'S HOSPITAL. According to Wikipedia: "Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women, published in 1868. This novel is loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters."




DESCRIPTION
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. Nan was tired, having risen with the birds, -hurried, having many cares those happy little housewives never know, -and disappointed in a hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined."She was too young to make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service of fewer conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward enough.