The third of Dickens' "Christmas books" (really a short novella), though this is less overtly Christmas themed than A Christmas Carol. It's basically a little morality tale with the chirping cricket playing the part of a supernatural "spirit of the hearth" who helps guide the main characters to forgive and trust each other.

The story is very simple (spoilers): older man with younger wife is led by another to fear she has feelings for someone closer to her own age, the cricket helps him come to terms with things, and in the end it turns out that her secret "lover" is actually someone else's fiancé instead, everyone lives happily ever after and the bitter old man who sowed the first seeds of suspicion undergoes an almost Scrooge-like transformation and seems to start turning over a new leaf of more generous spiritedness.

It's not as successful as A Christmas Carol, probably because the final transformation of the miserly character is neither as full as Scrooges and nor is he the main character in the story. So it comes across as a bit preachy and a fairly straight-forward story. Still, it has a happy ending and it's an interesting read if you like Dickens.