The Cricket on the Hearth

von Charles Dickens

Mr and Mrs Peerybingle have a very special guardian angel: their family is protected by a cricket who constantly chirps on their hearth. The Peerybingles have been happily married for a year when their miserly acquaintance, Mr Tackleton, plants a seed of doubt in Mr Peerybingle's mind, making him start to have second thoughts about the marriage. He even shows Jon a scene where Mrs Peerybingle appears to be cheating on him with their mysterious lodger. Poor Mr Peerybingle is devastated and contemplating the drastic step of divorce.