Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. 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 Hester Prynne.
我们先把这一讨论撇在一旁,把一件正事通报给读者。不出一年,老罗杰·齐灵渥斯便死了;根据他的最后意愿和遗嘱——贝灵汉总督和威尔逊牧师先生是其执行人——,他把一笔数目可观的遗产,包括在此地和在英国的,都留给了海丝特·白兰的女儿,小珠儿。
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 material change in the public estimation; and, had the mother and child remained here, little Pearl, at a marriageable period of life, might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest 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. For many years, though a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea,--like a shapeless piece of driftwood tost 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 awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea-shore, 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 wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like through these impediments,--and, at all events, went in.
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