The Scarlet Letter

In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big

enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls

of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's

bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit

the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her

bosom with her clasped hands. But whether from pride or

resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought

out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat

erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild

eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably

hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts

for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to

seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the

child stood still and gazed at Hester, with that little laughing

image of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her

mother so imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black

eyes.

"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.

"Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.

But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and

down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose

next freak might be to fly up the chimney.

"Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester.

Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the

moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was

Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted

whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her

existence, and might not now reveal herself.

"Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her

antics.

"Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the

mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive

impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering.

"Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?"

"Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to

Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell

me!"

"Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne.

But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the

acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary

freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up

her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter.

"He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no

Heavenly Father!"

"Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the

mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into the world. He

sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more thee! Or, if not, thou

strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?"

"Tell me! Tell me!" repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but

laughing and capering about the floor. "It is thou that must

tell me!"