The admirers of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” will not forget the caprices of little Pearl.
“‘Dost thou know thy mother now, child?’ asked Hester, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. ‘Wilt thou come across the brook and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon her, now that she is sad?’
“‘Yes, now I will!’ answered the child, bounding across the brook and clasping Hester in her arms. ‘Now thou art my mother indeed! and I am thy little Pearl!’
“In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew down her mother’s head and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. But then, by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish, Pearl put up her mouth and kissed the scarlet letter too!
“‘That was not kind,’ said Hester. ‘When thou hast shown me a little love, thou mockest me!’”
“Whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with every petted child towards a dangerous rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature, Pearl would show no favor to the clergyman. It was only by an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces, of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. The minister, painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child’s kindlier regards, bent forward and impressed one on her brow. Hereupon Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it and bathed her forehead until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water.”
“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?’