In the spiritual world, the old
physician and the minister--mutual victims as they have
been--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred
and antipathy transmuted into golden love.
Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to
communicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease,
(which took place within the year), and by his last will and
testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr.
Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount
of property, both here and in England to little Pearl, the
daughter of Hester Prynne.
So Pearl--the elf child--the demon offspring, as some people up
to that epoch persisted in considering her--became the richest
heiress of her day in the New World. Not improbably this
circumstance wrought a very material change in the public
estimation; and had the mother and child remained here, little
Pearl at a marriageable period of life might have mingled her
wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among them
all. But, in no long time after the physician's death, the
wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along with
her.
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