For many years, though a vague report would now and then
find its way across the sea--like a shapeless piece of driftwood
tossed ashore with the initials of a name upon it--yet no
tidings of them unquestionably authentic were received. The
story of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Its spell,
however, was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the
poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the
sea-shore where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this latter spot,
one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld a
tall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. In all
those years it had never once been opened; but either she
unlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand,
or she glided shadow-like through these impediments--and, at all
events, went in.
On the threshold she paused--turned partly round--for perchance
the idea of entering alone and all so changed, the home of so
intense a former life, was more dreary and desolate than even
she could bear. But her hesitation was only for an instant,
though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast.
And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsaken
shame! But where was little Pearl? If still alive she must now
have been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood.
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