me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister
of the Word, like the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale!"

"Fie, woman, fie!" cried the old lady, shaking her finger at Hester.
"Dost thou think I have been to the forest so many times, and have yet
no skill to judge who else has been there? Yea; though no leaf of the
wild garlands, which they wore while they danced, be left in their
hair! I know thee, Hester; for I behold the token. We may all see it
in the sunshine; and it glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou
wearest it openly; so there need be no question about that. But this
minister! Let me tell thee, in thine ear! When the Black Man sees one
of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond
as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters
so that the mark shall be disclosed in open daylight to the eyes of
all the world! What is it that the minister seeks to hide, with his
hand always over his heart? Ha, Hester Prynne!"

"What is it, good Mistress Hibbins?" eagerly asked little Pearl. "Hast
thou seen it?"

"No matter, darling!" responded Mistress Hibbins, making Pearl a
profound reverence. "Thou thyself wilt see it, one time or another.
They say, child, thou art of the lineage of the Prince of the Air!
Wilt thou ride with me, some fine night, to see thy father? Then thou
shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand over his heart!"

Laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her, the
weird old gentlewoman took her departure.

By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the
meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale were
heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling kept Hester
near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit
another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of
the pillory. It was in sufficient proximity to bring the whole sermon
to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct, but varied, murmur and
flow of the minister's very peculiar voice.

This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment; insomuch that a
listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher
spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and
cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and
emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart,
wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the
church-walls, Hester Prynne l