The Scarlet Letter

Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water,

and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should

have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child

flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet

went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there

she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left

by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in.

Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening

curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image

of a little maid whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited

to take her hand and run a race with her. But the visionary

little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say--"This

is a better place; come thou into the pool." And Pearl, stepping

in mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom; while,

out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of

fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.

Meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician. "I would speak

a word with you," said she--"a word that concerns us much."

"Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger

Chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping

posture. "With all my heart! Why, mistress, I hear good tidings

of you on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a

magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your

affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been

question concerning you in the council. It was debated whether

or no, with safety to the commonweal, yonder scarlet letter

might be taken off your bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my

intreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done

forthwith."

"It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off the

badge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it,

it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into

something that should speak a different purport."

"Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he, "A

woman must needs follow her own fancy touching the adornment of

her person. The letter is gaily embroidered, and shows right

bravely on your bosom!"

All this while Hester had been looking steadily at the old man,

and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a

change had been wrought upon him within the past seven years. It

was not so much that he had grown older; for though the traces

of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, and seemed

to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. But the former aspect of

an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what

she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been

succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully

guarded look. It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this

expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and

flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could

see his blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too,

there came a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old

man's soul were on fire and kept on smouldering duskily within

his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown

into a momentary flame. This he repressed as speedily as

possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had

happened.