In this chapter Pearl is 7 years old and she is active in the society helping people. Hester's "A" has really changed meaning to show her strength and Hester has changed. She is no longer sweet and passionate. She is a mean version of her old self. She worries about Dimmesdale because she is still keeping Chillingworths identity a secret.
Passage
"Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her
frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token,
not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but
of her many good deeds since. “Do you see that woman with the embroidered
badge?” they would say to strangers. “It is our Hester,—the town’s own
Hester,—who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to
the afflicted!” Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the
very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain
them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years."
This passage shows us that the townspeople had forgiven Hester and it shows that they respect her. They don't see her as a criminal anymore, but
Passage
"Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her
frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token,
not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but
of her many good deeds since. “Do you see that woman with the embroidered
badge?” they would say to strangers. “It is our Hester,—the town’s own
Hester,—who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to
the afflicted!” Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the
very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain
them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years."
This passage shows us that the townspeople had forgiven Hester and it shows that they respect her. They don't see her as a criminal anymore, but
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