Colonial Dames and Good Wives by Alice Morse Earle

Around the great glowing fireplace in an old New England kitchen centred the homeliness and picturesqueness of an old-time home. The walls and floor were bare; the furniture was often meagre, plain, and comfortless; the windows were small and ill-fitting; the whole house was draughty and cold; but in the kitchen glowed a beneficent heart that spread warmth and cheer and welcome, and beauty also when

the old rude-furnished room / Burst flower-like into rosy bloom.