The Scarlet Letter

"Nor ever will, my child, I hope," said Hester.

"And why not, mother?" asked Pearl, stopping short, just at the

beginning of her race. "Will not it come of its own accord when

I am a woman grown?"

"Run away, child," answered her mother, "and catch the sunshine.

It will soon be gone."

Pearl set forth at a great pace, and as Hester smiled to

perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in

the midst of it, all brightened by its splendour, and

scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid motion. The

light lingered about the lonely child, as if glad of such a

playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enough to step

into the magic circle too.

"It will go now," said Pearl, shaking her head.

"See!" answered Hester, smiling; "now I can stretch out my hand

and grasp some of it."

As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished; or, to judge

from the bright expression that was dancing on Pearl's features,

her mother could have fancied that the child had absorbed it

into herself, and would give it forth again, with a gleam about

her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. There

was no other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense

of new and untransmitted vigour in Pearl's nature, as this never

failing vivacity of spirits: she had not the disease of sadness,

which almost all children, in these latter days, inherit, with

the scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. Perhaps

this, too, was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy

with which Hester had fought against her sorrows before Pearl's

birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard,

metallic lustre to the child's character. She wanted--what some

people want throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch

her, and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. But

there was time enough yet for little Pearl.

"Come, my child!" said Hester, looking about her from the spot

where Pearl had stood still in the sunshine--"we will sit down a

little way within the wood, and rest ourselves."

"I am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. "But you

may sit down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile."

"A story, child!" said Hester. "And about what?"

"Oh, a story about the Black Man," answered Pearl, taking hold

of her mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half

mischievously, into her face.

"How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him a big,

heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Man offers

his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among

the trees; and they are to write their names with their own

blood; and then he sets his mark on their bosoms. Didst thou

ever meet the Black Man, mother?"