"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?"