Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurredno risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scopefor its exercise, to supply food for her thrivinginfant and herself. It was the art- then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp- of needlework. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroideredletter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornmentof human ingenuityto their fabricsof silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sablesimplicity that generally characterised the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaboratein compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispensewith. Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeouslyembroidered gloves were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power; and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuarylaws forbadethese and similar extravagancesto the plebeianorder. In the arrayof funerals, too-whether for the apparelof the dead body, or to typify, by manifoldemblematic-devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors- there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen- for babies then wore robes of state- afforded still another possibility of toil and emolument.
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