eart!"

"And what reason is that?" asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd
incongruity of the child's observation; but, on second thoughts,
turning pale. "What has the letter to do with any heart, save mine?"

"Nay, mother, I have told all I know," said Pearl, more seriously than
she was wont to speak. "Ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking
with! It may be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear,
what does this scarlet letter mean?--and why dost thou wear it on thy
bosom?--and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?"

She took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes
with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capricious
character. The thought occurred to Hester, that the child might really
be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what
she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a
meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted aspect.
Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a
sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return
than the waywardness of an April breeze; which spends its time in airy
sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in
its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take
it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanors, it will
sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of
doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then be gone
about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your
heart. And this, moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's
disposition. Any other observer might have seen few but unamiable
traits, and have given them a far darker coloring. But now the idea
came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable
precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when
she could be made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's
sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent
or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be
seen emerging--and could have been, from the very first--the steadfast
principles of an unflinching courage,--an uncontrollable will,--a
sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect,--and a
bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, might be found to
have the taint of falsehood in them. She possessed affections, to