common intellect, who have grown
morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which
they throw the life of many days, and then are lifeless for as many
more.

Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman, felt a dreary
influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not; unless
that he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her
reach. One glance of recognition, she had imagined, must needs pass
between them. She thought of the dim forest, with its little dell of
solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where,
sitting hand in hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk
with the melancholy murmur of the brook. How deeply had they known
each other then! And was this the man? She hardly knew him now! He,
moving proudly past, enveloped, as it were, in the rich music, with
the procession of majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainable
in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his
unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld him! Her spirit
sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that,
vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the
clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester,
that she could scarcely forgive him,--least of all now, when the heavy
footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer,
nearer!--for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their
mutual world; while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold
hands, and found him not.

Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself
felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the
minister. While the procession passed, the child was uneasy,
fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight.
When the whole had gone by, she looked up into Hester's face.

"Mother," said she, "was that the same minister that kissed me by the
brook?"

"Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. "We must
not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the
forest."

"I could not be sure that it was he; so strange he looked," continued
the child. "Else I would have run to him, and bid him kiss me now,
before all the people; even as he did yonder among the dark old trees.
What would the minister have said, mother? Would he have clapped his
hand over his heart, and scowled on me, and bid me be gone?"

"