Pittston Gazette

              / 1 Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Valley. 1'ITTSTOX, LUZERNE CO., PA., FRIDAY, JULY 15, 1892. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. Summer. oy oeite, often clasped with a rougn plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances a sword. try neeu not nave ueeu asiiameu do see these foremost men of an actual democracy adopted into the house of jeers or Kiade the privy council of the sovereign. osity, she flew thitherward and, as we might Bay, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so far as she desired it; but without yielding the midutest degree of control over her motions in requital. The Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclined to pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty and eccentricity that shone through ber little figure and sparkled with its activity. She ran and looked the wild Indian in the face; and he grew conscious of a nature wilder than his own. Thence with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners—the swarthy cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land; and tliey gazed wonderingly and ■4b minngly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea foam bad taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea fire that flashes beneath the prow in the night time. One of these seafaring men—the shipmaster, Indeed, who had spoken to Hester Prynne—was so smitten with Pearl's aspect that he attempted to lay hauds upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. Finding it A impossible to touch her as to catoh a humming bird in the air, be took from his bat the gold chain that was twisted about it and threw it to the child. Pearl immediately twined it around her neck and waist with such happy skill that once Been there it became a part of her, aad it was difficult to imagine her without it - ous uesuny tur me newtj gaiuereu people of the Uord. late; answereu me minister, encountering his eye fearfully but firmly. "Thy power is not what it was. With God's help I shall escape thee now." thou seest'f elf child had gone thus untimely to a maiden grave, or whether her wild, rich nature bad been softened and subdued and made capable of a woman's gentle happiness. But through the remainder of Hester's life there were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of another land. Letters came with armorial seals upon them, though of bearings unknown to English heraldry. A SAVING FATHER. Upon the mountain tope the tree* Nod gently to the summer breeie, And from below with ceaeeleee roar The wave# are bee tine 00 the ahore. In Summer clothe* the Summer throtu On beach and mountain stroll along: In blazer gay and cheviot shirt The youth now tries his beet to flirt. The Summer girl in muslin white each new man with fresh delight. And thus the Summer days go by: Twill soon be time for us to his Ourselves back home. This is no Joke, For we are sure to go bank broke. -Clothier and roraisher. But throughout it all and through the whole discourse there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwise as the uatural regret of one soon to pass away. Yes, their minister whom they so loved—and who so loved them all that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh—had the foreboding of untimely death upon him and would soon leave them in their tears! This idea of his transitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect which the preacher bad produced; it was as if an angel in his passage to the skies had shaken his bright wings over the people for an instant—at once a shadow and a splendor—and had shed down a shower of golden truths upon them. "Hush, Hester, hush!' said he with tremulous solemnity. "The law we broke—the sin here so awfully revealed —let these aloue be in thy though tut 1 fear, 1 fear! It may be that when we forgot our God—when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul—it was taeucetortta vain to uope that we rould meet hereafter in an everlasting and pure reunion, (tod knows, and he is merciful. He hath proved Ids mercy most of all in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man to keep the torture always at red heat! By bringing me hither to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people 1 Had either of these agonies been wanting, 1 had been last forever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!"How Wedding ExpniHca Were Bodnetd From bftr-rth their broad brimmed hats of palm leaf gleamed eyes which, even in good nature and merriment, had a kind of ferocity. They transgressed without fear or scruple the rules of behavior that were binding on all others; mwJring tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whifr would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure drafts of wine or aqua vit» from pocket flaaka, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. It remarkably characterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a license was allowed the seafaring claws, not merely for their freaks on shore, bat for far more desperate deeds on their proper element • • * Next in order to the magistrates cam* to bring the whole sermon to her ears in the shape of an indistinct but varied murmur and flow of the minister's very peculiar voice. He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter. "Papa, I will wed George." to a Low Figure. "Never." "Hester Prynnel" cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of him bo terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace at this last moment to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—1 withheld myself from doing seven . years ago, come hither now and twine thy strength about met Thy strength, Hester, but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted met This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might—with all his own might and the fiend's. Come, Hester, comet Supnort me no vonder scaffold!" The crowd was in a tumult. The mea of rank and dignity who stood more immediately around the clergyman were so taken by surprise and so perplexed aa to the purport of what they saw, unable to receive the explanation which most readily presented itself or to imagine any other, that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgment which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold and ascend itB steps, while still the little hand of the sin born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chilling-worth followed as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and Borrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore, to be present at its closing scene. The young girl's eyes flashed and the hot, passionate blood of her forefathers, to say nothing of her own, mantled her cheek with an angry flush. The old man was excited too. Parent and child confronted each other and neither quailed. This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language "In which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathetLfassion and pathos and emotions high or tender in a tongue native to the human heart wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the ch. eh wallB, Hester Prynne listened wjth such intentness. and sympathized so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her entirely apart from its indistinguishable ..These, perhaps, if more distinctly. heard, might have been only a grosser medium and have clogged the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through nrogseegfoe gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop hex with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice somethnee became, there was forever in it an essential character of plaintiveness.In the cottage there were articles of comfort and luxury such as Hester never cared to use, but which only wealth could have purchased and affection have imagined for her. There were trifles too—little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual remembrance that must have been wrouirht bv delicate finite rm. at the impulse of a fond heart Anfl once Hester was seen embroidering a baby garment, with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a public tumult had any infant thus appareled been shown to our sober hued community. TUB SCAKLET "Do yon refuse me that which alone will make me happy?" She stamped her new russet shoe upon the floor and never winced, although the fourth corn on her second toe hurt like sixty. It simply made her madder, and it looked as if the stern father might be compelled, in order to save himself from personal violence, to come off the perch. "Your happiness is very dear to me, my daughter." By lATHAKEL HAWTHOBUL CHAPTER XVL THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. Betimes in the morning of the da; which the new go his office at the Hester Prynne i into the market Thus there had come to the Reverend Mr. Diminesdale—as to most men in their various spheres, though seldom recognized until they see it far behind them—an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one or than any which could hereafter be. He stood at this moment on the very proudest eminence of superiority to which the giftMDf intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloqu«&e and a reputation at whitest sanctity could exalt a clergyman in New England's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself a lofty pedestal. Such was the position which the minister occupied as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit at the clode of his election sermon. Meanwhile Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillpry, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast. That final word came forth with tbe minister's expiring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder, which could not as yfct And utterance, nave in this murmur that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit. nrttu elders in their bUck „ cloaks, starched bands and steeple . .««ri came crowned hats smiled not unbenignantly .. It was already at d^rtmeatof the commander of ""he latter was by far the most showy ilant figure, so far as apparel .taywhers to be sees among the multitude. He wore a profusion of rib"lis jyin* and (Aid lace on vUch was also eiSrcled by s an as* aurmovaMa wxu a There was a sword at his side jrd cut on his forehead, which, arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than ▲ could hardly have (his garb and shown tips face, worn and shown them beth with a galliard air without undergoing item question before a magistrate and vobably incurring fine or imprison' t perhaps an exhibition in tin 4s regarded the shipmaster all was looked upon as MMiyliy, fji to fin ing from the physician, t the Bristol ship strol the market plaoe, nn Approach the spot whe j» was standing,' he ai ognixe and did not hesitafc jer. As was usually the casi floater stood, a sm&B vac&n sort of magic circle—had formec about her, into which, though thi people were elbowing one another at C little distance, none ventured or felt die VD intrude. It was a forcible type moral solitude in which the scar enveloped its fated wearer jartly by her own reserve and pjartly bj he instinctive, though i*olonger so un dndly, withdrawal of her fellow crea Now, if never before, it answerec purpose by enabling Hsptpr anc seamen to speak together withou " being overheard, and ao changed Prynne'a repute before thC he matron to town morality coold with la* the marine; m*k* rsatf ' bargained f i fever this v. rgeon fend iansK by token, staff atr Spanish The old man was feinting, as they say at the ring side. "What wouldst have me do, sir?" thronged with plebeian inhabi In fine, the gossips of that day believed—and Mr. Survey* Pue, who made investigations a century later, believed. 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 entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside. The father shrugged one shoulder, being compelled to be careful of the other on account of rheumatism. wise, were attire of d "Wilt abide by my command, daugh- longing to some of which surrounded CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUSION. . With an effort that convulsed her frame she repressed her emotion. ' "I will. Say on, papa." With infinite grace he led her to a seat. He considered it a great indorsement to have things come his way thus. "My child, you said wed." She nodded. "I say elope." She started. "Then I may marry George?" "Most assuredly. But no wedding, if yon please." After many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrange their thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more than one account of what bad been witnessed on the scaffold. of the colony. On this public holiday, m on all other occasions for seven years past, Hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray doth. Not more by itB hne than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline, while again the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight tadiitinctness and revealed her under the moral and g went, boos on kis hat, A load or low expression of anguish— the whisper or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom! At times this deep strain of pathos was aU that could be heard, and scarcely heard, sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding, when it gushed irrepressibly upward, when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to bunt its way through the solid walls and diffuse it self in the open air—still, if the auditoi listened intently and for the purpose, he could detect the same ory of pain. What was it? The complaint of a human heart, sorrow laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind, beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness, at every moment, in each accent and never in vai©! it was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power. During all this time Hester stood, statuelike, the foot of the scaffold. If the ministers voice had not kept her there, there would nevertheless have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy- There was a sense within her—too ill defined to be made II thought, but weighing hastily on her mind—that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity. Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mothers side, fnd was placing at her own will' about the market place. She made the somber crowd cheerful by her erraticsnd glistening ray; even as a bird of bright plumage flhunfiptea a whole tree of dusky foliage by darting to end Ira, half seen and half concealed amid the twilight of the plastering leaves. She bad an undulating, hot oftentimes and irregular movement U indicated the restlqss vivacity of her spirit, which today was doubly indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. Whenever Pearl saw anything to ez cite her ever active and wanderintr curiae young and eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the religious di& course of the anniversary was expected. His was the profession at that era in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political lifei for, leaving a higher motive out of the question, it offered inducements powerful enough in the almost worshiping respect of the community to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. Even political power, as m the case of Increase Mather, was within the grasp of a successful priest. It was the observation of those who beheld him now that never, since Mr, Diinmesdule first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feebleness of step as at other times; his frame was no£ bent, nor did his hand rest ominous}? upon his heart. • * * Hester Prynae, gaxing steadfastly at the clergyman, felt a dreary influence come over-her, but wherefore or whence she .knew not, unless that he seemed so remote from her own snbere and utterly beyond her reach. One glance C4 recognition, she had imagined, must needs pass between them. She thought of the dim forest,with its little dell of Bolitude and love and anguish, and the mossy tree trunk, where. Bitting hand in hand, they bad mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook. How deeply had they known each other then! And was this the man? Sbe hardly knew him now! He, moving .proudly past, enveloped, as it ware, in the rich music, with the procession of. majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainable in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld 1 im! Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly ps she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester that she oould scarcely forgive hiin—least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer—for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world, while she groped darkly and stretched forth her cold hands and found him not.' Most of the spectators testified to having seen on the breast of the unhappy minister a scarlet letter—the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne— imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there were various explanations, all of which most necessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a coarse of penace, which he afterward in so many futile methods followed out, by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Bat there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had fonnd a home. Here had been her sin; here her sorrow, and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed—of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period woald have imposed it—resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale Never afterward did it quit her bosom But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful and self devoted years that made up Hester's life, the scarlet lettei ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a 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 sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had gone through a mighty trouble. •Thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet letter," said the seaman. "Wilt thou carry her a message from me?" "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret—no high place nor lowly place where thou conldst have escaped me— save on this very scaffold I" and a si by the "If the message pleases me 1 will," answered Pearl. "Then tell her," rejoined he, "that 1 spake again with the black visaged, bump shouldered old doctor, and he engage* to bring his friend, the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him. So let thy mother take no thought save for herself and thee. Wilt thou tell her this, thou witch baby?" • Mow was heard again the clangor of the music, and the measured tramp of the military escort iseoiag from the church door. The procession was to be marshaled thence to the town hall, where a solemn banquet would complete the ceremonies of the day. aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask, or rather like the frosen calmness of a dead woman's features, owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead in respect to any claim of sympathy and had departed out of the world with which she still seemed to mingle. • • • hide. and sod He looked at his watch. "Blest you, my daughter. I am willing to pay for a very stylish elopement, but a wedding—no, indeed. Tell (ieorge not to stint himself on carriage hire and hotel bills. I will cheerfully meet the expense. You may elope sumptuously and I'll furnish the cash, but I can't possibly afford a wedding." Like the sensible girl that she was, she consented to the sacrifice after a good long cry.—Detroit Tribune. "Thanks be to him who hath led me hither!" answered the minister. Once more, therefore, the train of venerable and majestic fathers was seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the governor and magistrates, the old and wise bwo, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they were fairly in the market place their presence was greeted by a shout This—though doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the childlike loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers—was fait to be an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their etfrs. Each felt the impulse in himself and in the same breath caaght it from his neighbor. Within the church it had hardly been kept down; beneath the sky it pealed upward to the zenith. There were human beings enough and enough of highly wrought and symphonious feeling to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the seaeven that mighty swell of many voices blended into one great voice by the universal impulse which u»*ltes likewise one vast heart out of the many. Never from the soil of New England had game np such a shout! Never on New England soil had stood the man so honored by his mortal brethren as the preacher! How fared it with him then? Ware there uot the brilliant particles of a halo In the air about his head? So ethereal ized by spirit as be and so apotheosized by worshiping admirers, did his footsteps in the procession really tread upon the dust of earth? Yet he trembled and turned to Hester with an expression of doubt and anxiety in bis eyes, not the less evidently betrayed that there was a feeble smile upon his lips. nent, gtorki bower et taining to glistening After pt "Mistress Hibbins says my father is the Prince of the Air!" cried Pearl, with a naughty smile. "If thou  that Ul name 1 shall tell him of thee, and be will chase thy ship with a tempest!"Others contended that the stigma not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger (fillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again—and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body—whispered their belief that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the Cant, and would gladly, now that it done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. peri bis "Is not this better," murmured he, "than what we dreamed of in the forestrPearl was decked out with airy gayety. It would have been impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed its existence to the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a task perhaps more difficult in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to Heater's simple robe. The dress, so proper was it to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be separated from her than the many hoed brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright flower. As with these, so with the child; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. On this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitement m her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbingsof the breast on which it is displayed. Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them; always, especially a sense of any trouble or impending revolution of whatever kind in domestic circumstances, and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed by the very dance of her spirits the emotiona which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester's brow. "I know not! I know notr she hurriedly replied. "Better? Tea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us?" Idljr through happening to ) I I I I P| i Pater Famalias (just arrived at waterng place hotel)—This room is the Very •est I could get, my dear. Times are hard, you know. Who'd Be a Bachelor? Pursuing a zigzag course across the market place the child returned to her mother and communicated what the peored to i to »ddreM wherever ssr* mariner had said. Hester's strong, calm, steadfastly enduring spirit almost sank at last on beholding this dark and grim countenance of an inevitable doom, which—at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of miseryshowed itself with an nqrelentiiig smile rirbt in tbe mid«t of their mth With ber mind harassed by the terrible perplexity in which the shipmaster's intelligence involved her, fehe was also subjected to another trial. There were many people present, from the country round about, who had often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated rumors, but who had never beheld it with their own bodily eyes. These, after exhausting Other modes of amusement, now thronged about Hester Prynne with rqde and boorish intrnsiveueas. Uii aurupulona as it was, however, jt could not bring them-oearer than a circuit of several yards. At that distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired The whole gang of sailors, likewise, observing the praw of spectators and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, ram* and thrust their sunburned and desperado looking faces into the ring. "For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order," said the minister; "and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which he hath made plain before my sight For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste to take my shame upon me!" Women, more especially, in the continually 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 Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy. Hester 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 heaven's own time a new truth would be revealed in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life Hester had vainly imagined that she berself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognized the impossibility that any mission of divine aud mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a lifelong sorrow .The angel and apostle of the coming poeec of the let letter Partly supported by Hester Pryne, and holding one hand of little Pearl's, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerable rulers; to the My ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whoee great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life matter—which, it foil of ■in, was full of anguish and repentance likewise—was now to be laid open to thein. The sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman and gave a distinctness to his figure as he stood out from all the earth to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of eternal justice- tares. • gOM the _ risk of l was Hestei public that . _ eminent for rigic have held such interooom suit of scandal than herself. "So, mistress,n Mid " most bid the steward mors berth than yon fear of scurvy or shi}» y What with the ship's surgeoL other doctor, oar only  there is a lot of apothecary'i which I traded for with a. seL" "What mean yon?" inquired Hestei startled more than she permitted to ap pear. "Save you another passenger?" "Why, know yon not." cried the ship master, "that this physician her©—thrillingworth he calls himself—is mindsd to try my cabin fare with yon? Aye, aye, yon must have known it, for ho tells me he is of your party, and a close friend to the gentleman yon spoke of—lw that is in peril from these sonr old Puritan rulers!" f""!' ™ It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were spectators of the whole acene and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast more than on a newborn infant's. Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged nor even remotely implied any, the slightest, connection on his part with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. According to these highly respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that rnoet »ot W ▼ery  Mater Palilalias—But where are we all to sleep? Hare yon forgotten that we have three children? ,j one or! No -»y agel P. P. (earnestly)—No, but 1 thought "People of New England!" cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn and majestic—yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, straggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe—"ye that have loved met—ye that have deemed pie holy—behold me here the one sinner of the world) At last—at last—I stand upon the spot where seven years since I should have stood; here with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith 1 have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadful moment from groveling down upon my face! lxD, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose—it hath cast a lprid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance around about her. But there Stood one in the midst of you at whoee Uand of sin and infamy ye have nqt .shuddered!" that the children could sleep with you and I could occupy one of the trunks. I dont expect to have much of a time, anyway.—Brooklyn Life. this will b» -M aboard. v Tea- revelation must tie a wouian, indeed bnt lofty, pore and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy, and showing how sacred love should make as happy by the truest test of a life sue oeasful to such an end. be was reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels—had desired, by yielding np his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness. After exhausting life in his efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful leaaon that, in the view of infinite purity we are sinners all alike- It was to teach them that the holiest among us has but Attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the mercy which looks down and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would took aapiringly upward. Without dis- Euting a truth so momentous, we must e allowed to consider this version of Mr. Dimmesdale's story as only an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which a man's friends—and especially a clergyman's—will sometimes uphold hit character, when proofs, clear as the midday sunshine on the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin stained creature of the dust also that the' A Moonlight Phantasy. Ah the ranks of military men and |iril fathers moved onward, all eyes were turned toward the point where the minister waa seen to approach among them. The shout died into a murmur as one portion of the crowd after another obtained a glimpse of him. How feeble and pale he looked amid all his triumph! The energy—or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up until he should have delivered the sacred message that brought its own strength along with it from heaven—was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its office. The glow, which they had j ust before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late-decaying embers. It seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a deathlike hue; it was hardly a man with life in him that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did not falll The violet sky of the night swung low its starlit arch over the sleeping earth. The lambent moon dashed with gold the white road leading away under the great trees. There were strips of light and shade lying along with the vista of the overlunging branches, and in and out among these walked a couple. This effervescence made her flit with • birdlike movement, rather than walk by her mother's side. She broke continually into shonts of a wild, inarticulate and sometimes piercing mode. When they reached the market place she became still more restless on perceiving the stir and bustle that enlivened the spot, for it was usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting house than the center of a town's business/ Even the Indians were affected by a sort of cold shadow of the white man's curiosity, and gliding through this crowd fastened their snakelike black eyes on Hester's bosom, conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity among her people. Lastly the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn out subject languidly reviving itself by sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter and tormented Hester Prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, with their oool, well acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. Hester saw and recognized the self same faces of that group of matrons who had awaited her forthcoming from the prison door seven years ago, all save one—the young est and 0Qly compassionate among them —whose burial robe she had since made. At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the center of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfully than at any time since the first day she put it on. So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the Bcarlet letter. And after many, many years a new grave was delved near an old and sunken one in that burial ground beside which King's chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a 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 monuments 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 engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend, so somber is it and relieved only by one everglowing paint of light gloomier than the shadow: "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules." A man and a woman. He was tall and straight. She was by his side, of fair proportions. They spoke no words as they walked, and the sweet summer air moved no faster than they and was still. "Why, what is this, mother?" cried she. "Wherefore have all the people left their work today? Is it a play day for the whole world? See, there is the blacksmith! He has washed his sooty face and put on his Sabbath day clothes, and looks as if he would gladly be many if any kind body would only teach him how! And there is Master Brackett, the old jailer, "lading and smiling at me. Why does he do so, mother?' "He remembers thee a little babe, my child," answered Hester, "They know each other well indeed," replied Hester with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. "They have long dwelt together." . Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester Prynne. But at that instant she heheld old Roger Chillingworth himself standing in the re motest corner of the market place and smiling on bar—a smile which across the wide and bustling Square, and through all the talk and laughter and various thoughts, moods ana Interests of the crowd, conveyed secret and (earful meaning. { There Was a twitter among the leaves of a bird in its nest, and a low hum, as if the voices of the night were whispering to the stars and the leaves. It seemed at this point as if the minister mast leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness—and, still more, tho faintness of heart—that was striving for the mastery with him. fie threw off all assistance and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child. A cloud came up from the western sky and laid its mantle over the face of the moon and the strips of light across the couple's path shadowed away into darkness. Then it was the woman spoke. "George," she said, almost harshly it seemed, where erstwhile all had been so sweet and still. One of his clerical brethren—it was the venerable John Wilson—observing the state in which Mr. Dimmesdale was left by the retiring wave of intellect and sensibility forward hastily to offer has support The minister tremulously but decide Uy repelled the old man's arm. He still walked onward, if that movement could be so described, which rather resembled the wavering effort of an infant with its mother's arms in view outstretched to tempt him forward. And now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of bis progress, he had come opposite the well remembered and weather darkened scaffold, where long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between, Hester Prynne had encountered the world's ignominous stare. There stood Hester holding little Pearl by the hand! And there was the scarlet letter on her breast! The minister here made a pause, although the music still played the stately and rejoicing march t« which the procession moved. It summoned him onward—onward to the festival— but here he made a pause. "He should not nod and smUe at me for all that—the black, grim, ugly eyed old manr said Pearl. "He may nod at thee, if he will; for thou art clad in gray and weareet the scarlet letter. But see, mother, how many faces of Strang* people, and Indians among them, and sailors! What have they all come to do here in the market place?" The authority which we have chiefly followed—a manuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals, some of whom had known Hester Prynne, while others bad beard the tale from contemporary witnesses— fully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience we put only this into a sentence: "Be true! Be true I Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the wont may be inferred!" • • • THE END. CHAPTER XVII. THE ROOB8IOS. T. I Before Better Prynne could call together her thoughts and consider what was practicable to be done in this new and startling aspect of aft*in, the Bound of military music was heard approach ing along a contiguous street It denoted the advance of the procession of magiatratee and citizens on its way to want the meeting houae, where, in com pliancy with » custom thus early established and ever since observed, the Rev ----- - - .i«JiVer "It was on him!" he continued, with a -kind of fierceness, so determined was he to speak out the whole. "God's eye beheld it! The angels were forever pointing at itl The devil knew it well and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid it cunningly from men and walked among you with rhe mien of a spirit, mournful because so pure in a sinful world and sad because he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death hour, ho stands up before you! He bids yon look again at Hester's scarlet letter! He tells you that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart! Stand any here that question God's judgment on a sinner? Behold! Behold a dreadful witness of it!" "Yes, Martha," he replied in deep abstraction.Off on m Boat. Iffv I J# The woman spoke again. "We've got to get a new hired girl," she said earnestly. "I know it, Martha," answered the man, "and for the last half hour I've been wondering where the dickens we could find one that was worth a continental."While Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her forever, the admirable preacher was lookinsr down from the sacred oulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. The sainted minister in the church! Th* woman of the scarlet letter in market place! What imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was en them bothl "They wait to eeetheproeeaeioa p*r.r Mid Hester. "For the governor and the magistrates we to go by and the mioittan and all the great people and good people, with themnsic and the soldiers marching before them." They were married. And the moon dodged behind a wad of watery clond and kicked itself severely.—Detroit Free Press. Mr. Dimmeadale vu UD del , sermon. the heed of the procession showeo with * slow and stately march, « corner and mating its way narket place, rftot cuua(r ft comprised a variety of ». perhaps imperfectly ad&pt— aootber, and played with no skill, but yet attaining the great (or which the harmony of dram addresses Itself to the multi of imparting a higher and heroic air to the scene of life that "And will the minister be there?" asked Pearl. "And will he hold oat both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brooksidefH an election Soon itself, turning across th« tb« music. 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 Heater Prynne. Now in Season. "What's the matter, Johnny?" called his mother. "He will be there, child," answered her mother, "Bat he will not greet thee today; nor mart thou greet him." CHAPTER XVTIL "Cramps!" shrieked Johnny, doubled up with pain. "What a strange, sad man is her said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. "In the dark night time he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder. And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, be talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here, in the sonny day, and among all the people, he knows us not: nor must we know himf A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!" THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER ed to oaa The eloquent voice on which the souls of the listening audience had been borne aloft as on tbe swelling waves of the sea at length came to a pause. There waa a momentary silence, profound as What should follow the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a murmur and half hushed tumult, as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had transported them into the regien of an~ other's mind, were returning into themselves with all their awe and wonder ■till heavy on them. In a moment more the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. Now that there was an end they needed other breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought "Oh, yes," severely; "you've been in swimming, have you?" "No, ma'am, it's the other kind—green apples."—Chicago News Record. With a convulsive motion ho tore away tbe ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to describe that revelation. For an instant the gaze of tbe horror stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle; while tbe minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who in the crisis of acutest pain had won a victory. Then down he sank upon the scaffold! Hester partly raised him and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside her, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which tbe life seemed to have departed. —Life. 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 materia] change in the public estimation, and had tbe mother and child remained here little. Pearl, at a marriageable period of life, might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of tbe devouteet 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. All Specialists. and clarion Bellingham for the last few momenta had kept an anxious eye upon him. He now left his own place in the procession and advanced to give assistance, jadginp from Mr. Dimmesdale's aspect, that he must otherwise inevitably fall. Bat there was something in the latter's expression that warned bach the magistrate, although a man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another. The crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. This earthly faintness was, in their view, only another phase of the minister's celestial strength, nor would it have seemed a miracle too high to be wrought for one so holy, had hepscended before their eyes, waxing dimmer and brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven. The marvelous strides of medical icience within fifty years have made the necessity for the specialist, bnt it touches one's sense of the comic to have the experience of a young wornin who wished not long ago to consult Dr. Smith, an eye and ear specialist. She went to a large building given up to 'he use of physicians. A Hasbsnd's Jurisdiction. Pryor—Do you run your household? Frank—No, my wife runs that Pryor—Ah, I see; you run the office. Frank—No, the janitor runs that. Pryor—What in thunder do you run? Frank—Well, I run back and forth.— Truth. passes before the eye. Little Pearl at first clapped her hands, bat then loet for an instant the restlew agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence throughout .the morning. She gaged silently and seemed to be borne upward, like a floating sea bird, ■m the long heaves and swells of sound. But she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine at the weapons and bright armor of th« military company which followed aftei the music and formed the honorary escort of the procession, This bodj of soldiery, which still sustain* a corporate existence and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honorable fame, was composed of no mercenary materials. Its ranks were filled with gentlemen who felt the stirrings of martial impulse and sought to establish a kind of college of arms, where, as in an association of Knights Templar, they might leam the science, and. so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the practices of war. "You mistake, madam," said the first ahysician to whom she presented her«lf, "I am not Dr. Smith for the eye utd ear, I am Dr. Smith for the throat md lungs." Very Rich. Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister. While the precession passed the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down like a bird on the ■pint of taking flight. When the whole iUd gone by she looked up into Hester's face. Rachel—My father is the richest man in town. "Be quiet. Pearl! Thou understands** not these things," said ber mother. ••Think not now of the minister, but look about thee and see bow cheery is everybody's face today. The children have come from their schools, and the grown people from their workshops and their fields on purpose to be happy. For today a new man is beginning to rule over them, and so—as has been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first gathered—they make merry and rejoice, as if a good and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old worldf* • * • The picture of human life in the market place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians—in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin robes, wampum belts, red and yellow ocher and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stoneheaded spear — stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were theee painted* barbarians, war* they the wildest feature of the scene, This distinction could more justlvbe claimed by some mariners -apart of the crew of the vessel from the Spanish Main—who had come ashore to see the humors of election day, They were rough looking desperadoes, with ran .blackened faces and an immensity ot Deara; tneir wide, snort tropgrs ware confined about the waiat "Thou hast escaped met" he repeated more than once. "Thou hast escaped me!" "And is that Dr. Smith for the eye and jar across the hall?" May—My father is richer than yours. He has his teeth trimmed with raid.— Young People. 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 twful were the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the seashore, 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 «vood and yielded to her hand, or she glided shadowlike through these impediments and. at all events, went in. "No, madam,"' he answered gravely, "that is Dr. Smith for the heart and itomach. Dr. Smith for the eye and ear b five doors down the corridor."— Yankee Blade.  Quit* m SaryrlM. "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply Binned." He was a gilded youth of the high* ©ollar-kid-glove-big-cane-cigarette variety, and he sat in front of a pretty girl in a palace car and made remarks, "By Jawve," to begin an acquaintance. In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The street and the market place absolutely babbled from side to side with applauses of the minister. His hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. According to their united testimony, never had map spoken in so wise, so high and so holy a spirit as he that spake this day, nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did through bis. Its influence could be seeq, as it were, descending upon him and possessing him and continually lifting hiw out of the written discourse that lay before hfta, and tilling him with ideas that must have been as marvelous to hithself as to his audience. His subject, It appeared, had been the relation between the Deity and the communities of mankind, with a special reference fq the New England which they were here planting in the wilderness. And as he drew toward the close a spirit as of prophecy had pome upon him, constraining him to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of Israel were constrained; only with this difference, that whereas the Jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was | his mission to foretell a high and glori- He withdrew his dying eyes from the old man and fixed them on the woman and the child. "Mother," said she, "was that (jhesazne minister that kissed me by the brook?' "Hold thy peace, dear little Pearir whispered her mother. "We must not always talk in the market place of what happens to us in the forest." He turned toward the scaffold and stretched forth his arms. "Hester," said he, "come hither! Come, my little Pearl I" Another Mjitery. "My little Pearl," said he feebly—and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the child—"dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not yonder in the forest I But now thou wilt?" "There, now, just see that woman with a dawg—such a silly fashion— wouldn't let a wife of mine do it, by Jawve—dragging a dawg after her with a string. Now, you wouldn't go round that way, miss, would youi" "No," tittered the young "* don't think 1 would." "Dwagging a poodle, too—the vewj low-lowest ordab of cweation. 1 haven't any use for a poodle, don't you know." It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them, but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The child, with the birdlike motion which was one of her characteristics, flew to him and clasped her arms About his knees. Hester Prynne—slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fete and against her strangest will—likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd—or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed *nd evil WAI his look, he rose up out Q? PQme nether region—to snatch baoh his victim from what he sought to dot Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward and caught the minister by the arm. "1 could not be sure that it was he; so strange heJooked," continued the child. ■'Else I would have run to him and bid him kiss me now, before all the people; even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. What would the minister have said, mother? Would he have clapped his hand over his heart and scowled on me and bid me be gonef' ••What should he say, pearl?" am swered Hester, "save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market place? Well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him!" f ♦ t By this time the preliminary prpypi had beep offered in the meeting house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Pimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling kept Hester near the ppot. A» the scored edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the oiUory. It waa in sufficient oroximitj The high estimation than placed opon the military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of the company. Some of them, in deed, by their services in the low countries and on other fields of European warfare, had fairly won their title to —nmi the name and pomp of soldiership, The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modem display can aspire to equal And yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind the military eecort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. Even in outward dp* meanor they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughty stride look vulgar, if not absurd. * * * So far aa a demeanor of natural w i thority waa ooaoemed. the mother conn- Pearl kissed his hps. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; end as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up (paid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it Toward her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of angqish was all fulfilled. They had reach*! the depot now, and the youth, who had never carried anything heavier than his cane, insisted on taking a basket the young lady was car* rying in her arms. On the threshold she paused—turned partly around—for perchance the idea »f entering all alone and all so changed the tome of so intense a former life was nore dreary and desolate than even she Mild bear. But her hesitation was only far an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. "Allow me, miss," he said, as he gathered it in. "Oh, thank you. Please be very careful not to drop it. Flossie is so delicate, you know." "Flossie?" "Hester," said the clergyman, "fareweiir"Madman, bold I what is your purpose?" whispered he. "War* back that woman t Cast off this child I AH shall be well! Do not blacken your fame and perish in dishonor 1 I can yet s*ve yon) Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "Shall we not meet Again?" whispered she, bending her face down close to his. "Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely, surely, we have ransomed each other, with all this woet Thou lookest far into eternity with those bright, dying eyesl Then tell me what And Hester Prynne had returned and taken up her long forsaken shame! But where was little Pearl? If still alive, •he most now have been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. None knew—nor ever learned, with the fullness of oerfect certainty—whether the Small Boy—Mister, couldn't yez help • poor boy whose mother is a widdet and out av worruk? "Yes, my poodle—such a darlingt Thank you, I'll take her now." . Gentleman—Poor fellow 1 How long has your father been dead? Bmall Boy — Twinty yean, sor. — Brooklyn Lite. She bowed herself off with the greatest ease, while the youth stared and bleated, "By Jawve!" — Detroit Ftm Vrm "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too