noon
It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day , but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light . The wooden houses , with their jutting storeys and quaint gable-peaks ; the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them ; the garden-plots , black with freshly-turned earth ; the wheel-track , little worn , and even in the market-place margined with green on either side -- all were visible , but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before . And there stood the minister , with his hand over his heart ; and Hester Prynne , with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom ; and little Pearl , herself a symbol , and the connecting link between those two . They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour , as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets , and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another . There was witchcraft in little Pearl 's eyes ; and her face , as she glanced upward at the minister , wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish . She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale 's , and pointed across the street . But he clasped both his hands over his breast , and cast his eyes towards the zenith .