"I will not; but oh, my boy! gladly would I have kept the sorrowful story concealed from you forever, but that I know from what I have seen of you to-night, that some rude tongue has told you of your misfortune--and told you wrong besides!" said Hannah, as they re-entered the hut. They sat down beside the small wood fire that the chill night made not unwelcome, even in August. Hannah sat in her old arm-chair, and Ishmael on the three-legged stool at her feet, with his head in her lap. And there, with her hand caressing his light brown hair, Hannah told him the story of his mother's love and suffering and death. At some parts of her story his tears gushed forth in floods, and his sobs shook his whole frame. Then Hannah would be forced to pause in her narrative, until he had regained composure enough to listen to the sequel. Hannah told him all; every particular with which the reader is already acquainted; suppressing nothing but the name of his miserable father. At the close of the sad story both remained silent for some time; the deathly stillness of the room broken only by Ishmael's deep sighs. At last, however, he spoke: "Aunt Hannah, still you have not told me the name of him my poor mother loved so fatally." "Ishmael, I have told you that I cannot; and now I will tell you why I cannot." And then Hannah related the promise that she had made to her dying sister, never to expose the unhappy but guiltless author of her death. "Poor mother! poor, young, broken-hearted mother! She was not much older than I am now when she died--was she, Aunt Hannah?" "Scarcely two years older, my dear." "So young!" sobbed Ishmael, dropping his head again upon Hannah's knee, and bursting into a tempest of grief. She allowed the storm to subside a little, and then said: "Now, my Ishmael, I wish you to tell me what it was that sent you home so early from the party, and in such a sorrowful mood. I knew, of course, that something must have been said to you about your birth. What was said, and who said it?" "Oh, Aunt Hannah! it was in the very height of my triumph that I was struck down! I was not proud, Heaven knows, that I should have had such a fall! I was not proud--I was feeling rather sad upon account of Walter's having missed the prize; and I was thinking how hard it was in this world that nobody could enjoy a triumph without someone else suffering a mortification. I was thinking and feeling so, as I tell you, until Walter came up and talked me out of my gloom. And then all my young companions were doing me honor in their way, when--" Ishmael's voice was choked for a moment; but with an effort he regained his composure and continued, though in a broken and faltering voice: "Alfred Burghe left the group, saying that I was not a proper companion for young ladies and gentlemen. And when--she--Miss Merlin, angrily demanded why I was not, he--Oh! Aunt Hannah!" Ishmael suddenly ceased and dropped his face into his hands.