ing flung open from within, there appeared, in
the first place, the grim presence of the town-beadle, and following him
a young woman who bore in her arms a baby of some three months old.

The young woman was tall, and those who had known Hester Prynne before
were astonished to perceive how her beauty shone out. On the breast of
her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and
fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A, and it was
that scarlet letter which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured
the wearer.

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by
the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men
and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place
appointed for her punishment. It was no great distance from the prison
door to the market-place, and in spite of the agony of her heart, Hester
passed with almost a serene deportment to the scaffold where the pillory
was set up.

The crowd was sombre and grave, and the unhappy prisoner sustained
herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand
unrelenting eyes.

One man, small in stature, and of a remarkable intelligence in his
features, who stood on the outskirts of the crowd, attracted the notice
of Hester Prynne, and he in his turn bent his eyes on the prisoner till,
seeing she appeared to recognise him, he slowly raised his finger and
laid it on his lips.

Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he
said, "I pray you, good sir, who is this woman, and wherefore is she
here set up to public shame?"

"You must needs be a stranger, friend," said the townsman, "else you
would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil doings.
She hath raised a great scandal in godly Master Dimmesdale's church. The
penalty thereof is death. But the magistracy, in their great mercy and
tenderness of heart, have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space
of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and for the remainder of
her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom."

"A wise sentence!" remarked the stranger gravely. "It irks me,
nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not at least stand
on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known--he will be known!"

Directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of
balcony, and here sat Governor Bellingham, with four sergean