San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-06-16

COulu NAVE accomplished d IuuCu 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 PEARLS rich and
luxuriant beauty; beauty that shone
with deep and vivid tints; a bright COM
plexion, 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 unprecedented off
shoot of a passionate moment. Her
mother, in continuing the child's garb,
had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of
her imagination their full play, arraying
| her in a crimson velvet tunic of a pecul-
lar cut, abundantly embroidered with
| fantasies and fourishes of gold thread.
So much strength of coloring, which
must have given wan and pallid aspect
to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admir-
ably adapted to PEARLS beauty, and
made her the very brightest little jet of
flame that ever danced upon the earth.
But it was a remarkable attribute of
this garb, and, indeed, of the child's
whole appearance, that it irresistibly
and inevitably reminded the beholder of
the token which Hester Prynne was
doomed to wear upon her bosom. 1t
was the scarlet letter in another form;
the scarlet letter endowed with life!
The mother herself-as if the red ig-
nominy were so deeply scorched into
her brain that all her conceptions as
sumed its form-had carefully wrought
out the similitude; lavishing many hours
of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy
between the object of her affection and
the emblem of her guilt and torture.
But in truth Pearl was the one as well
as the other, and only in consequence of
that identity had Hester contrived SO
perfectly to represent the scarlet letter
in her appearance.
AS the two wayfarers came within the
precincts of the town the children of
the Puritans looked up from their play,
or what passed for play with those SOM
Der little urchins, and spake gravely one
to another;
Behold. verify, there is the woman
of the scarlet letter; and of a truth,
moreover, there is the likeness of the
scarlet letter running along by her side.
Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at
them"
But Pearl, who was dauntless child,
after frowning, stamping her foot and
shaking her little hand with variety
of threatening gestures, suddenly made
a rush at the knot of her enemies and
put them all to fight. She resemhled,
in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant
pestilence-the scarlet fever or some
such half fedged angel of Judgment
| whose mission was to punish the sins of
the rising generation. She screamed
and shouted, too, with terrific volume
of sound, which doubtless caused the
hearts of the fugitives to quake within
| them. The victory accomplished, Pearl
returned quietly to her mother and
looked up smiling into her face.
| Without further adventure they
reached the dwelling of Governor Bel
lingham. This was large wooden house,
built in fashion of which there are
specimens still extant in the streets of
our older towns; now moss grown,
crumbling to decay, and melancholy at
heart with the many sorrowful or joyful
occurrences, remembered or forgotten,
that have happened and passed away
within their dusky chambers. Then,
however, there was the freshness of the
passing year on its exterior, and the
cheerfulness, cleaning forth from the
sunny windows, of a human habita'
ton into which death had never en-
tered.
They approached the door, which was
of an arched form and flanked on each
side by a narrow tower or projection OF
the edifice, in both of which were lattice
windows, with wooden shutters to close
over them at need. Lifting the iror
hammer that hung at the portal, Hester
Prynne gave summons, which was an
swered by one of, the governors bono
servants, free born Englishman, bu
now seven years slave. During tina
term ne was to be the property of hi
master, and as much commodity O
bargain and sale as an OK, or joint stool
The serf wore the blue coat, which wa
the customary garb of serving men o
that period and long before in the oil
hereditary halls of England.
sis the worshipful Governor Belling
ham within?" inquired Hester.
"Yea, forsooth," replied the bond serv
ant, staring with wide open eyes at tn
scarlet letter, which, being q newcome
in The country. he had never before seen