lp talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say.
Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed
from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes
shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she
danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course.

"What does this sad little brook say, mother?" inquired she.

"If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of
it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine! But now,
Pearl, I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting
aside the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play, and
leave me to speak with him that comes yonder."

"Is it the Black Man?" asked Pearl.

"Wilt thou go and play, child?" repeated her mother. "But do not stray
far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call."

"Yes, mother," answered Pearl. "But if it be the Black Man, wilt thou
not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his
arm?"

"Go, silly child!" said her mother, impatiently. "It is no Black Man!
Thou canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister!"

"And so it is!" said the child. "And, mother, he has his hand over his
heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book,
the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it
outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?"

"Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time,"
cried Hester Prynne. "But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hear
the babble of the brook."

The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook,
and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy
voice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept
telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that
had happened--or making a prophetic lamentation about something that
was yet to happen--within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl,
who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off
all acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, therefore,
to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines
that she found growing in the crevices of a high rock.

When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made a step or two
towards the track that led through the forest, but still remained
under the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advan