By degrees her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her skill, and her needlework was seen on the ruff of the governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his bands.
As time went on, the public attitude to Hester changed. Human nature, to its credit, loves more readily than it hates. Hester never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage, and so a species of general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to her.
Hester had named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price, and little Pearl grew up a wondrously lovely child, with a strange, lawless character. At times she seemed rather an airy sprite than human, and never did she seek to make acquaintance with other children, but was always Hester's companion in her walks about the town.
At one time some of the leading inhabitants of the place sought to deprive Hester of her child; and at the governor's mansion, whither Hester had repaired, with some gloves which she had embroidered at his order, the matter was discussed in the mother's presence by the governor and his guests--Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, and old Roger Chillingworth, now established as a physician of great skill in the town.
"God gave me the child!" cried Hester. "He gave her in requital of all things else which ye have taken from me. Ye shall not take her! I will die first! Speak thou for me," she cried turning to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale. "Thou wast my pastor. Thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! I will not lose the child! Look to it!"
"There is truth in what she says," began the minister. "God gave her the child, and there is a quality of awful sacredness between this mother and this child. It is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant confided to her care--to be trained up by her to righteousness, to remind her and to teach her that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parent thither. Let us then leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!"
"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him.
"He hath adduced such arguments that we will even leave the matter as it now stands," said the governor. "So long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman."
The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed.