He had uttered all this in a low voice, rapidly, as if afraid his strength would not last him to say what he wished. Virginia turned to her cousin and seized his hand. "Philip! Philip! can you refuse--can you desert me, too? O father! I shall be alone in this world." "Why do you not promise me, and let me die in peace?" exclaimed the old man with some of that stern command in his voice which had become a part of him; "do you not love my child?" "Not as I did once. At least--but that's no matter. Do not distress yourself, uncle, about Virginia. I will be to her a true and faithful brother. I promise to care for her and share with her as if she were my sister." "If I could see her your wife, my boy, I should feel repaid for all I have done for you, since you were thrown upon my hands, an orphan and friendless, as my child will soon be. Send for the priest, children, and make it sure." Philip was silent; his cousin, too, was silent and trembling. "Don't you see I'm going?--do you want to let me die unsatisfied?"--the querulous voice was weak and sinking. "I promise to be a brother to Virginia--to care for her as if she were my own, uncle. Is not that enough?" "No--no--no!" fretted the dying man, who, having been unreasonable and exacting all his life, could not change his nature at the hour of death. Distressed and uncertain what to do, tempted by the force of circumstances, Philip wavered; but the moment when his promise would have given his uncle any satisfaction had passed--the awful change was upon his face, the sweat upon his brow, the rattle in his throat. "O, my father!" sobbed Virginia, sinking upon her knees and flinging her arms over the heart which had ceased to beat. The gray morning broke over her as she wept wildly beside the bed. Philip was obliged to draw her away from the room by force, while others came to attend upon the dead. To see her so given up to grief, so desolate, with no one but himself to whom she could turn, touched him with pity and tenderness. "Weep, if you will, poor girl, it will be better than choking back all those tears. Weep in my arms, for I am your brother now," he said, very gently, as he seated her upon a sofa and drew her head to his shoulder, soothing her and quieting her excess of emotion, until, from fatigue and exhaustion, she dropped asleep on his bosom. "How lovely she is, with her arrogance and vanity all melted away by some real sorrow," he thought, as he laid her carefully upon the pillow, and went out to give directions to the disturbed household. During the next week Philip made himself of use to all, overseeing, quietly directing and controlling every thing; and when the funeral was over, the outer excitement subsided, and nothing left but that emptiness and shadow of the house from which the dead has recently been borne, then he had to consult with the orphan girl what should be done for the future.