"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.
"Compose yourself, my dear boy, and go on," said the weaver.
"He said that I was a—No! I cannot speak the word! I cannot!"
"A young villain! If ever I get my hands on him, I will give him as good a broomsticking as ever a bad boy had in this world! He lied, Ishmael! You are not what he called you. You are legitimate on your mother's side, because she believed herself to be a lawful wife. You bear her name, and you could lawfully inherit her property, if she had left any. Tell them that when they insult you!" exclaimed Hannah indignantly.
"Ah! Aunt Hannah, they would not believe it without proof!"
"True! too true! and we cannot prove it, merely because your mother bound me by a promise never to expose the bigamy of your father. Oh, Ishmael, to shield him, what a wrong she did to herself and to you!" wept the woman.
"Oh, Aunt Hannah, do not blame her! she was so good!" said this loyal son. "I can bear reproach for myself, but I will not bear it for her! Say anything you like to me, dear Aunt Hannah! but never say a word against her!"