The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs . The people , in the mean while , were stirring to and fro on the floor of the house , whispering among themselves and glancing toward the intruder . Many of them now recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the governor with frightful language as he passed by the window of her prison ; they knew , also , that she was adjudged to suffer death , and had been preserved only by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness . The new outrage by which she had provoked her fate seemed to render further lenity impossible , and a gentleman in military dress , with a stout man of inferior rank , drew toward the door of the meetinghouse and awaited her approach . Scarcely did her feet press the floor , however , when an unexpected scene occurred . In that moment of her peril , when every eye frowned with death , a little timid boy threw his arms round his mother . `` I am here , mother ; it is I , and I will go with thee to prison , '' he exclaimed . She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened expression , for she knew that the boy had been cast out to perish , and she had not hoped to see his face again . She feared , perhaps , that it was but one of the happy visions with which her excited fancy had often deceived her in the solitude of the desert or in prison ; but when she felt his hand warm within her own and heard his little eloquence of childish love , she began to know that she was yet a mother . `` Blessed art thou , my son ! '' she sobbed . `` My heart was withered -- yea , dead with thee and with thy father -- and now it leaps as in the first moment when I pressed thee to my bosom . '' She knelt down and embraced him again and again , while the joy that could find no words expressed itself in broken accents , like the bubbles gushing up to vanish at the surface of a deep fountain . The sorrows of past years and the darker peril that was nigh cast not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting moment . Soon , however , the spectators saw a change upon her face as the consciousness of her sad estate returned , and grief supplied the fount of tears which joy had opened . By the words she uttered it would seem that the indulgence of natural love had given her mind a momentary sense of its errors , and made her know how far she had strayed from duty in following the dictates of a wild fanaticism . `` In a doleful hour art thou returned to me , poor boy , '' she said , `` for thy mother 's path has gone darkening onward , till now the end is death . Son , son , I have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tottering , and I have fed thee with the food that I was fainting for ; yet I have ill-performed a mother 's part by thee in life , and now I leave thee no inheritance but woe and shame . Thou wilt go seeking through the world , and find all hearts closed against thee and their sweet affections turned to bitterness for my sake . My child , my child , how many a pang awaits thy gentle spirit , and I the cause of all ! ''
She hid her face XXXXX Ilbrahim 's head , and her long raven hair , discolored with the ashes of her mourning , fell down about him like a veil .
By against as at like on till toward while within