But, in the education of her child, the mother’s enthusiasm thought had something to wreak itself upon.

Providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned to Hester’s charge, the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The world was hostile. The child’s own nature had something wrong in it which continually betokened that she had been born amiss — the effluence of her mother’s lawless passion — and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little creature had been born at all.

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting