ng way off,
was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here
a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and
there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an
arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the
doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute
particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his
existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard;
and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him, in a few
moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drew
nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother
clergyman,--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as
well as highly valued friend,--the Reverend Mr. Wilson; who, as Mr.
Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some
dying man. And so he had. The good old minister came freshly from the
death-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to
heaven within that very hour. And now, surrounded, like the saint-like
personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him
amid this gloomy night of sin,--as if the departed Governor had left
him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself
the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to
see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,--now, in short, good
Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted
lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to
Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled,--nay, almost laughed at them,--and then
wondered if he were going mad.

As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, closely
muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the
lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly
restrain himself from speaking.

"A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, I
pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!"

Good heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one instant, he
believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered
only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to
step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his
feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform.
When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the
minister discovered, by the faintne