The Scarlet Letter

Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known to

Mr. Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior

consequences, the true character of the man who had crept into

his intimacy. For several days, however, she vainly sought an

opportunity of addressing him in some of the meditative walks

which she knew him to be in the habit of taking along the shores

of the Peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring

country. There would have been no scandal, indeed, nor peril to

the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame, had she visited

him in his own study, where many a penitent, ere now, had

confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by

the scarlet letter. But, partly that she dreaded the secret or

undisguised interference of old Roger Chillingworth, and partly

that her conscious heart imparted suspicion where none could

have been felt, and partly that both the minister and she would

need the whole wide world to breathe in, while they talked

together--for all these reasons Hester never thought of meeting

him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky.

At last, while attending a sick chamber, whither the Rev. Mr.

Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that

he had gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among

his Indian converts. He would probably return by a certain hour

in the afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next

day, Hester took little Pearl--who was necessarily the companion

of all her mother's expeditions, however inconvenient her

presence--and set forth.

The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the Peninsula

to the mainland, was no other than a foot-path. It straggled

onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it

in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and

disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to

Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which

she had so long been wandering. The day was chill and sombre.

Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however,

by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now

and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This

flitting cheerfulness was always at the further extremity of

some long vista through the forest. The sportive

sunlight--feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant

pensiveness of the day and scene--withdrew itself as they came

nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier,

because they had hoped to find them bright.

"Mother," said little Pearl, "the sunshine does not love you.

It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something

on your bosom. Now, see! There it is, playing a good way off.

Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child.

It will not flee from me--for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!"