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: