Le grillon du foyer

At the home of John and Dot, parents of a baby, where also lives Tilly, the nurse, a lucky chimney cricket chirps. John and Dot host a mysterious stranger who has come to visit them for a few days. Their neighbor, the miser Mr. Tackleton, employs poor Caleb in his toy shop. The latter has a blind daughter, Berthe, from whom he hides all the miseries of the world so as not to tarnish his happiness. He also has a son, Edouard, who left for South America, and whom we no longer hear from. May, the latter's fiancée, believing him to be dead, is about to marry Tackleton, although she does not love him. Suddenly, the hearth cricket stops chirping ...