The Scarlet Letter Chapter Nineteen: The Child at the Brook-Side Summary

As Pearl approaches them, the two talk about how she resembles both Dimmesdale and Hester. They observe that she looks like a fairy coming to meet them. She is the "visible tie" that connects them to each other.
Hester whispers to the minister that he shouldn’t be too eager because Pearl doesn’t like emotion.
The minister replies that children don’t often like him but Hester reassures him that this child will love him.
As Pearl stands on the other side of the brook, looking at them, Hester suddenly feels separated from her daughter.
The narrator says she is correct, but Hester is the one at fault – she has admitted another person to the intimate circle that had always been made up of only mother and child.
Pearl feels lost, looking at the two of them.
Dimmesdale imagines the brook to be a boundary between two worlds, and that Hester will never meet "her" Pearl again.
He suggests that Pearl should hurry, to dispel his unease.
Hester calls out to her child to hurry, but Pearl, who notices the minister put his hand over his heart, points to her mother’s heart. She stamps her foot.
Hester keeps urging her to come but Pearl begins to throw a temper tantrum.
Hester, embarrassed, finally points out the scarlet letter to Pearl, which is near her feet. She commands Pearl to bring it to her.
Pearl responds that Hester should come and take it herself.
Hester murmurs to the minister that the child is right, she must bear the symbol for a little while longer, until they leave the village.
She will then throw it in the ocean.
As Hester takes the symbol back and puts it on, she feels herself thrown back into the prison of shame.
She puts her hair back in her cap and she is transformed back into the old Hester.
And it is then that Pearl agrees to cross the brook and join her. Pearl kisses her mother and then kisses the scarlet letter.
Hester exclaims that her action is not kind.
Pearl asks if the minister loves them and if he will go back with them, hand in hand, to the village.
Hester replies that the time has not yet come for that, but it will come and he will love Pearl dearly.
Pearl asks if he will continue to keep his hand over his heart.
Hester scolds her and commands her to come ask his blessing.
But Pearl wants nothing to do with the minister if he won’t publicly announce his connection to the two of them. When Dimmesdale stoops and kisses Pearl, she runs back to the brook and washes the kiss off.

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