Or--but this more rarely
happened--she would be convulsed with rage of grief and sob out
her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on
proving that she had a heart by breaking it. Yet Hester was
hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it
passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters,
the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some
irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win
the master-word that should control this new and
incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when
the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she was sure of
her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness;
until--perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from
beneath her opening lids--little Pearl awoke!
How soon--with what strange rapidity, indeed did Pearl arrive at
an age that was capable of social intercourse beyond the
mother's ever-ready smile and nonsense-words! And then what a
happiness would it have been could Hester Prynne have heard her
clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other
childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own
darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of
sportive children.
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