San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-07-02

them, Though or bearings Unknown Io'
English heraldry.
In the cottage there were articles OF
comfort and luxury sucha Hester never
cared to use, but which only wealth
could have purchased and affection have
imagined for her. There were TRIES
too-little ornaments, beautiful tokens
of a continual remembrance that must
have been wrought by delicate fingers,
at the impulse of fsnd heart. And
once Hester was seen embroidering a
baby garment, with snch lavish rich
ness of golden fancy as would have
raised a public tumult had any infant
thus appareIed been shown to our sober
hued community.
In fine, the igossips of that day be-
hewed-and Mr. Surveyor Pue, who
made investigations a century later, be-
lieHed, and one of his successors in Office
moreover. faithfully believes-that Pearl
was not only alive, but married and
happy and mindful OF her mother, and
that she would most joyfully have en-
tertained that sad and lonely mother al
her freside.
But there was a more real life fol
Hester Prynne here, in New England
than in that unknown region where
Pearl had found a home Here had
been her sin; here her sorrow, and here
was yet to be her .penitence. She had
returned, therefore, and resumed-oi
her own free will, for not the sternesi
magistrate of that iron period would
have imposed it-resumed the symbol OF
which we have related so dark tale
Never afterward .didiit quit her bosom
But, in the lapse of the toilsome
thoughtful and self devoted years that
made up Hester's life, the scarlet letter
ceased to be a stigma which attracted
the worlds scorn and bitterness. and be
came type of something to be sorrowed
over and looked upon with awe, yet
with reverence too. And as Hester
Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in
any measure for her own profit and en-.
joyment, people brought all their .sor-
rows and perplexities, and besought her
counsel, as one who had gone through a
mighty trouble.
Women, more especially, in the con.
tinually recurring trials of wounded,
wasted, wronged, misplaced or erring
and sinful passion, or with the dreary
burden of a heart unyielded, because
unvalued and unsought, came to Hes.
ter's cottage, demanding why they were
so wretched, and what the remedy. Hes.
ter .comforted and cOunseled them as
best she might. She assured them, too
of her firm belief that at some brighter
period, when the world should have
grown ripe for it, in heavens own time
a new truth would be revealed in order
to establish the whole relation between
man and woman on surer ground OF
mutual happiness
Earlier in life Hester had vainly i'm
agined that she herself might be the
destined prophecies, but had long since
recognized the impossibility that any
mission of divine and mysterious truth
should be confded to a woman stained
with sin, bowed down with shame, or
even burdened with lifelong sorrow
The angel and apostle of the coming
revelation must be a woman, indeed.
but lofty, pure and beautiful; and wise,
moreover, not through dusky grief, but
the ethereal medium of JOY, and show
ing how sacred love should make US
happy by the truest test of life sue
cessful to such an end.
So said Hester Prynne, and glanced
her sad eyes downward at the scarlet
letter. And after many, many years
new grave was delved near an old and
sunken one in that burial ground beside
which Kings chapel has since been
built. 1t was near that old and sunken
grave, yet with space between, as if
the dust of the two sleepers had no right
to mingle. Yet one tombstone served
for both. All around there were monu-
ments carved with armorial bearings.
and on this simple slab of slate, as the
curious investigator may still discern
and perplex himself with the purport.
there appeared the semblance of an en-
grayed escutcheon. 1t bore a device, a
herald's wording of which might serve
for motto and brief description of our
now concluded legend, so somber is it
and relieved only by one everglowing
point of light gloomier than the shadow:
ION field, sable, the letter A, gules."
THE END.
TWO FAMOUS .JEHUS.