"I hope and believe that you are indeed prepared to die, my dear, good friend," answered the doctor, with feeling in his tone, and the feeble hand of the sufferer meanwhile within his. "I cannot hold out a false hope to you--you cannot live. How gladly science and friendship would both join hands in doing something to keep you in the world, you know; but how much we shall all miss you and grieve for you, you do _not_ know." "That you will miss me, I hope," said the dying man. "But there is no occasion whatever to grieve for me. It is a peaceful end, I think, and in God's own good time. I have but one anxiety." He paused, and the doctor nodded his head towards the side of the room where poor Eleanor was sitting, trying to distract her own thoughts by looking out of the window. The father saw that he understood him, and pressed the hand that he held. "Yes, you have guessed rightly," he said. "My only anxiety is for the fate of my child. Eleanor is a good girl, but she is yet very young, and she will need protection." "She shall find it!" said the doctor, solemnly. The face of the dying man lit up with an expression of the sincerest pleasure and happiness, and his feeble grasp again pressed the hand of high health which lay so near his own ebbing pulse. "I believe you and I thank you, my friend as well as physician," he replied. "I have not been afraid to think of this day, as they tell me that so many are; and my affairs are in some degree prepared for it. I have a handsome property, though not a large one, and you will find a will lying in the private drawer of the safe at the store. With the exception of a few legacies to friends, a small one to yourself included--it all goes to Eleanor, and you will find yourself named my executor." "A confidence which flatters me, and which I hope I shall deserve," said the doctor, as the enfeebled man again paused for a moment. "I _know_ that you will," the sufferer resumed. "Thanks to my property, Eleanor will not be a burthen to you, except in the demand of _care_. Her few relatives, as you know, are distant ones, and none of them reside nearer than California. There will be none to interfere with you in guiding her aright, keeping her pure in her remaining years of girlhood, and watching over her until she becomes the wife of some honorable man, or in some other way ceases to need your protection." "I accept the charge as freely as it is given, and I will perform it as I would for one of my own blood!" was the solemn answer of the medical man. "I knew that before I asked, or I should never have asked at all!" said the dying man. "Eleanor, my daughter, come here." The young girl obeyed and knelt beside the bed, striving to restrain her sobs and tears. The father laid his hand on her head and gently smoothed the masses of dark brown hair with fingers that would so soon be beyond capacity for such a caress.