Yes. In Chapter XIII, Hester, although she is ostracized
from much of society, is always "quick to acknowledge her sisterhood" with mankind.
Having suffered so herself, she tenderly administers to the sick and even gives of her
money to those more impoverished than she. So charitable is she and so competent and
patient in attending the ill that the community views her symbolic scarlet
A in another perspective. Now, "Elsewhere the token of sin, it was
the taper of the sick-chamber"; in fact, Hawthorne writes that Hester is "a Sister or
Mercy" and the letter becomes the symbol of her calling. She is so helpful and
sympathetic that many people say that her A means
"Able."
In the previous chapter (XII) in which the Reverend
Dimmesdale stands in the night on the scaffold in an effort to make penance for his
sins, Hester and Pearl traverse the path after a vigil for a dying member of the
community. As the minister speaks, a meteor lights up the sky, revealing the minister
holding his heart, Hester with her scarlet letter, and Pearl as the link between the
two. The next day, various interpretations of this phenomenon are given; one of them is
that the A stands for "angel." Those who have seen it feel that
the good Governor Winthrop, who had died, was made an angel and the heavens "made notice
of this." Hester is indirectly linked to this symbol as she has kept vigil over the
governor.
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