Come away, mother or he will catch you!
But he cannot catch little Pearl!"
So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking
fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a
creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried
generation, nor owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had
been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be
permitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself
without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime.
"There goes a woman," resumed Roger Chillingworth, after a
pause, "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that
mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be
borne. Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that
scarlet letter on her breast?"
"I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman.
"Nevertheless, I cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain
in her face which I would gladly have been spared the sight of.
But still, methinks, it must needs be better for the sufferer to
be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to
cover it up in his heart."
There was another pause, and the physician began anew to examine
and arrange the plants which he had gathered.
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