The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester’s good qualities than the people.  The prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them.  Day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might grow to be an expression of almost benevolence.  Thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the guardianship of the public morals.  Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.  “Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?” they would say to strangers.  “It is our Hester—­the town’s own Hester—­who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!” Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years.  It was none the less a fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom.  It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril.  Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe.  It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck it, and fell harmless to the ground.

The effect of the symbol—­or rather, of the position in respect to society that was indicated by it—­on the mind of Hester Prynne herself was powerful and peculiar.  All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it.  Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change.  It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners.  It was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine.  It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester’s face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though majestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester’s bosom to make it ever again the pillow of Affection.  Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to