Hester Prynne

"I will not lose the child! Speak not of it!"

"She may serve you when you come to your reckoning!"

"The past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now?"

"Dost thou feel, then, so little interest in the child's welfare?"

"What we did had a consecration of its own."

"God knows; and He is merciful!"

"I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature!"

"Dost thou see yonder child? She is naturally cruel. I have often been terrified by her intelligence."

"Better to starve than to live at his cost!"

"Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Infinite!"

"Keep, therefore, the secret, cousin Wentworth!"

"That letter was meant for no such purpose."

"God will show mercy, He always does."

"What we did had a consecration of its own"

"Thou wilt love her dearly, said Hester, calmly, as a mother speaks"

"Thou and I never knew what we might have been"

"Our nature being as it is, we had for a long time ceased to hope"

"I will not lose the child, said Hester, with firm emphasis"

"Fortune, Fate and Destiny had conspired against us to keep us apart"

"What is this but a mockery and an insult?"

"If the forest could testify against me, it would not. The very trees would plead in my favor."

"I am not the judge of thine iniquity. I came not to smite thee!"

"Thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any."

"Better to die of despair than to live a lie."

"Would that I could here find the man!"

"What a strange sad man is he!"

"The minister! It was not so!"

"What we did had a consecration of its own."

"Thou art not my master, and I may refuse what thou demandest."

"My old faith in the heavenly guardianship of the poor child has not forsaken me."