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. “

The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and gristly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic