of Hester Prynne, and he in his turn bent his eyes on the prisoner till,
seeing she appeared to recognise him, he slowly raised his finger and
laid it on his lips.

Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he
said, "I pray you, good sir, who is this woman, and wherefore is she
here set up to public shame?"

"You must needs be a stranger, friend," said the townsman, "else you
would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil doings.
She hath raised a great scandal in godly Master Dimmesdale's church. The
penalty thereof is death. But the magistracy, in their great mercy and
tenderness of heart, have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space
of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and for the remainder of
her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom."

"A wise sentence!" remarked the stranger gravely. "It irks me,
nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not at least stand
on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known--he will be known!"

Directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of
balcony, and here sat Governor Bellingham, with four sergeants about his
chair, and ministers of religion.

Mr. John Wilson, the eldest of these clergymen, first spake, and then
urged a younger minister, Mr. Dimmesdale, to exhort the prisoner to
repentance and to confession. "Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr.
Wilson.

The Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale was a man of high native gifts, whose eloquence