es, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of
laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish
laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart,--but he knew not whether
of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute,--he recognized the tones of
little Pearl.

"Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he after a moment's pause; then,
suppressing his voice,--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?"

"Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and
the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along
which she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl."

"Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?"

"I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne;--"at
Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe,
and am now going homeward to my dwelling."

"Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr.
Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you.
Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!"

She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding
little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other
hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a
tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a
torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the
mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his
half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain.

"Minister!" whispered little Pearl.

"What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale.

"Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?"
inquired Pearl.

"Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the
new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had
so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he
was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy,
nevertheless--he now found himself. "Not so, my child. I shall,
indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not
to-morrow."

Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister
held it fast.

"A moment longer, my child!" said he.

"But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's
hand, to-morrow noontide?"

"Not then, Pearl," said the minister, "but another time."

"And what other time?" persisted the ch