half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex.  They were her countrywomen:  and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition.  The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England.  There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.

“Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “I’ll tell ye a piece of my mind.  It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne.  What think ye, gossips?  If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded?  Marry, I trow not.”

“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.”

“The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch—­that is a truth,” added a third autumnal matron.  “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead.  Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me.  But she—­the naughty baggage—­little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown!  Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, “let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.”

“What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges.  “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it?  Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book.  Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray.”

“Mercy on us, goodwife!” exclaimed a man in the crowd, “is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows?  That is the hardest word yet!  Hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself.”