"Home, sweet home,
Be it ever so humble there is no place like home."

Home is emphatically the poor man's paradise. The rich, with their
many resources, too often live away from the hearth-stone, in heart,
if not in person; but to the virtuous poor, domestic ties are the
only legitimate and positive source of happiness short of that holier
Heaven which is the soul's home.

The wife of Chester sat up for him that winter's night. It was so
intensely cold that she could not find the heart to seek rest while
he was exposed to the weather. The room in which she sat was a small
chamber in the second story of a dwelling that contained two other
families. Around her were many little articles of comfort tastefully
arranged, and bearing a certain degree of elegance that always betrays
the residence of a refined woman, however poor she may be. A well
worn but neatly darned carpet covered the floor. The chairs, with
their white rush bottoms, were without stain or dust. A mahogany
breakfast-table, polished like a mirror, stood beneath a pretty
looking-glass, whose guilt frame shone through a net-work of golden
tissue-paper. Curtains of snow-white cotton, starched till they looked
clear and bright as linen, were looped back from the windows, with
knots of green riband. A pot or two of geraniums stood beneath the
curtains, and near one of the windows hung a Canary bird sleeping
upon its perch, with its feathers ruffled up like a ball of yellow
silk.

All these objects, nothing in themselves, but so combined that an
air of comfort and even elegance reigned over them, composed a most
beautiful domestic picture; especially when Mrs. Chester, obeying