'"This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its
sake!"'

'It has been, Heaven knows,' returned the Carrier. 'She made it
happy, always,--until now.'

'So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and
light-hearted!' said the Voice.

'Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,' returned the
Carrier.

The Voice, correcting him, said 'do.'

The Carrier repeated 'as I did.' But not firmly. His faltering
tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its own way, for
itself and him.

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said:

'Upon your own hearth--'

'The hearth she has blighted,' interposed the Carrier.

'The hearth she has--how often!--blessed and brightened,' said the
Cricket; 'the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and
bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar
of your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty
passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a
tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that