Shivering as with a chill, she moaned:
"Oh! how can I bear it? My life will be one long, living death, and I
shall always want to shriek out the dreadful thing which father says I
must keep! Can I? Ought I? And could they hang my father? I do not think
so. They would call it manslaughter, and pardon him, for my sake--for
Burton's."
And here the poor girl groaned bitterly, as she thought of Burton, her
young brother, whom she loved so much, and of whom she was so proud,
and for whom she was so glad that he could live in Boston, amid all the
fine sights of a city, which suited him better than the homely life at
the farm-house. When, after her mother's funeral, her aunt, Mrs.
Wetherby, had offered to take him home with her and bring him up as her
own, Hannah had felt for a time as if she could not let him go and leave
her there alone; but when she thought of all the benefit it would be to
him, and saw how much he wished it, she stifled every selfish feeling,
for his sake, and saw him leave her without a sign of the pain at her
heart, or the unutterable longing she had for his companionship.
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