What are some quotes that prove Hester's daughter, Pearl, is a treasure and not a punishment to Hester?

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
characterizes its youngest character, Pearl, as a wild, often disobedient, but loving child. As
the fruit of Hester’s all-to-public sin of adultery, Pearl is a natural symbol that Hawthorne
uses for several purposes. One of those purposes is to portray the end result (Pearl) of Hester’s
public shame as a sort of “new” person, one that the townspeople, in their stodgy, strict, and
judgmental ways, cannot fully understand. The last thing that Hester’s tormenters would have
expected was for this child to become a comfort and a vindication for
Hester.

In chapter 15, “Hester and Pearl,” Hawthorne explores the
relationship between the precocious Pearl and Hester. As she plays along the sea’s edge, the
reader sees Pearl identify with her mother in a physical way:

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. . . Pearl took some eelgrass, and imitated, as best she
could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her
mother’s.”

Although the letter is
supposed to make Hester feel shame, it is an object of fascination to Pearl, which makes less of
a punishment to Hester.

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Most importantly, Hester begins to view Pearl as
something more than just the biological consequence of her affair with Dimmesdale, and in fact,
something more than just her own child. She begins to consider the idea that Pearl is actually a
gift of God, sent to help her get through her difficult and lonely
life.

Hester had often fancied that
Providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked
propensity [Pearl’s interest in the Hester’s scarlet letter]; but never, until now, had she
bethought herself to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose
of mercy and beneficence.

To a person in Hester’s situation, what
could be more of a “treasure” that a physical manifestation of God’s mercy? Here, Hester is
actually considering the possibility that God (Providence) has given her Pearl as a means of
comfort. The idea that Pearl is a creation of God’s “mercy” links the child with the divine and
helps explain why Pearl seems so ill-suited to Puritan society: She is a creature of heaven, not
of earth, and not able to be understood by the townspeople, many of whom have impure
motives.

While the reader might have expected Pearl to be a burden
to Hester, a constant reminder of her tainted life, Pearl becomes the means by which Hester
overcomes the stigma of the scarlet letter and the scorn of her Puritan
neighbors.