So the child flew away like a
bird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pattering along the
moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and
peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror
for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool,
with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her
eyes, the image of a little maid, whom Pearl, having no other
playmate, invited to take her hand, and run a race with her. But the
visionary little maid, on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to
say,--"This is a better place! Come thou into the pool!" And Pearl,
stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom;
while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of
fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.

Meanwhile, her mother had accosted the physician.

"I would speak a word with you," said she,--"a word that concerns us
much."

"Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger
Chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping
posture. "With all my heart! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of you
on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and
godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, and
whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the
council. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the common weal,
yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life,
Hester, I made my entreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might
be done forthwith!"

"It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this
badge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, it
would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something
that should speak a different purport."

"Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he. "A woman
must needs follow her own fancy, touching the adornment of her person.
The letter is gayly embroidered, and shows right bravely on your
bosom!"

All this while, Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and
was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had
been wrought upon him within the past seven years. It was not so much
that he had grown older; for though the traces of advancing life were
visible, he bore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigor and
alertness. But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man,
ca