r 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 the smoke from this
poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest
incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy
temples of this world!--Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary;
surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me!
Hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!"

"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier.

"All things that speak the language of your hearth and home _must_ plead
for her!" returned the Cricket. "For they speak the truth."

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit
meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him, suggesting his
reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass
or picture. It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearth-stone, from
the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from
the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart
without, and the cupboard within, and the household implements; from
everything and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and
with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her
unhappy husband's mind,--Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand
beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do
all honour to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when
it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and st