 the elements of ultimate
salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these
advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester
Prynne's. Among those who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to
be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little
ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which, in later days, would have been
referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of the town,
should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of
eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of
even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare
of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of
legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than
that of our story, when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig, not
only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony,
but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the
legislature.
    Full of concern, therefore, - but so conscious of her own right, that it
seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public, on the one side, and a
lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other, - Hester Prynne
set forth from her solitary cottage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion.
She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly
in motion from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey
than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she
demanded to be taken up in arms, but was soon as imperious to be set down again,
and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless
trip and tumble. We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty
that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing
intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and
which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her and
throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment.
Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies
of her imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic, of a
peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold
thread. So much strength of
