grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enough yet for little Pearl.

“Come, my child!” said Hester, looking about her from the spot where Pearl had stood still in the sunshine — ”we will sit down a little way within the wood, and rest ourselves.”

“I am not aweary, mother,” replied the little girl.

“But you may sit down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile.”

“A story, child!” said Hester. “And about what?”

“Oh, a story about the Black Man,” answered Pearl, taking hold of her mother’s gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously, into her face.