"Bring it hither!" said Hester.
"Come thou and take it up!" answered Pearl.
"Was ever such a child!" observed Hester aside to the minister.
"Oh, I have much to tell thee about her! But, in very truth, she
is right as regards this hateful token. I must bear its torture
yet a little longer--only a few days longer--until we shall have
left this region, and look back hither as to a land which we
have dreamed of. The forest cannot hide it! The mid-ocean shall
take it from my hand, and swallow it up for ever!"
With these words she advanced to the margin of the brook, took
up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom.
Hopefully, but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it
in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her
as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of
fate. She had flung it into infinite space! she had drawn an
hour's free breath! and here again was the scarlet misery
glittering on the old spot! So it ever is, whether thus typified
or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of
doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and
confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering
spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of
her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow
seemed to fall across her.
When the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to
Pearl.
"Dost thou know thy mother now, child?", asked she,
reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. "Wilt thou come across
the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon
her--now that she is sad?"
"Yes; now I will!" answered the child, bounding across the
brook, and clasping Hester in her arms "Now thou art my mother
indeed! and I am thy little Pearl!"
In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew
down her mother's head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks.
But then--by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child
to alloy whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb
of anguish--Pearl put up her mouth and kissed the scarlet
letter, too.
"That was not kind!" said Hester. "When thou hast shown me a
little love, thou mockest me!"
"Why doth the minister sit yonder?" asked Pearl.
"He waits to welcome thee," replied her mother. "Come thou, and
entreat his blessing! He loves thee, my little Pearl, and loves
thy mother, too. Wilt thou not love him? Come he longs to greet
thee!"
"Doth he love us?" said Pearl, looking up with acute
intelligence into her mother's face. "Will he go back with us,
hand in hand, we three together, into the town?"