 of a bride. The exception indicated the ever relentless vigor with
which society frowned upon her sin.
    Hester sought not to acquire any thing beyond a subsistence, of the plainest
and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child.
Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue; with only
that one ornament, - the scarlet letter, - which it was her doom to wear. The
child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we might
rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy
charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared
to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter. Except for
that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her
superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who
not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she
might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in
making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of
penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of
enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her
nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic, - a taste for the gorgeously
beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing
else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women
derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of
the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and
therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected
it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter
betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and stedfast penitence, but something
doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong, beneath.
    In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world.
With her native energy of character, and rare capacity, it could not entirely
cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's
heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with
society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it.
Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in
contact, implied, and often
