The New England Holiday

Pearl was decked out with airy gaiety. It would have been
impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed
its existence to the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy, at
once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to
contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a
task perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a
peculiarity to Hester's simple robe. The dress, so proper was it
to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development
and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be
separated from her than the many-hued brilliancy from a
butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright
flower. As with these, so with the child; her garb was all of
one idea with her nature. On this eventful day, moreover, there
was a certain singular inquietude and excitement in her mood,
resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that
sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the breast on
which it is displayed. Children have always a sympathy in the
agitations of those connected with them: always, especially, a
sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind,
in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem
on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of
her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble
passiveness of Hester's brow.

This effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement,
rather than walk by her mother's side.

She broke continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and
sometimes piercing music. When they reached the market-place,
she became still more restless, on perceiving the stir and
bustle that enlivened the spot; for it was usually more like the
broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, than
the centre of a town's business.