s charge the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and
developed amid a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The
world was hostile. The child's own nature had something wrong in it,
which continually betokened that she had been born amiss,--the
effluence of her mother's lawless passion,--and often impelled Hester
to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that
the poor little creature had been born at all.

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with
reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth
accepting, even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own
individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and
dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it
may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns,
it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole
system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the
very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which
has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman
can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position.
Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take
advantage of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have
undergone a still mightier change; in which, perhaps, the ethereal
essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have
evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of
thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart
chance to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus, Hester Prynne, whose
heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clew
in the dark labyrinth of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable
precipice; now starting back from a deep chasm. There was wild and
ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At
times, a fearful doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not
better to send Pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such
futurity as Eternal Justice should provide.

The scarlet letter had not done its office.

Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the
night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held
up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice
for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath
which the minister strugg