"Eleanor," he said, "you are almost a woman in years, and you must be altogether a woman, now. I am going to leave you--I may leave you in a few minutes." "Oh, I know it, father!--dear, dear father! Oh, what will become of me?" and in spite of her efforts to restrain herself she sobbed and choked piteously. "You will be cared for, my child, not only by heaven but by kind friends; and you must not grieve so over what does not grieve me at all," said the departing parent. "Dr. Pomeroy is to be the executor of my estate, and your guardian. Love and obey him, my daughter, in every thing, as you would love and obey me if I was allowed to remain with you. Do you understand me?--do you promise me, Eleanor?" "I do understand you!--I do promise you, dear, dear father!" sobbed the young girl. "I will obey Dr. Philip, and try to be good all my life, so that I can meet you where I know that you are going to meet my mother." "My dear, good child!--you and the doctor have made me so happy! Kiss me now, Eleanor, and then let me sleep a few moments." And directly after that kiss of agonized love was given, he fell back upon his pillow--as if he was indeed dropping into a quiet sleep; but the doctor felt the hand that lay within his relax its pressure, one or two sighs fluttered from the quivering lips, while a light foam tinged with blood crept up to them and bubbled there, and the moment after Eleanor Hill was fatherless. And yet the poor girl who sobbed so heart-brokenly over the corpse of one who had been to her the truest and kindest of parents, was not fatherless in that desolate sense in which the word is so often used. The ties of blood might be rudely broken, but did not the hand of true friendship stand ready to assert itself? Had not Philip Pomeroy promised the friend of years, that he would be father and protector to her--that he would shelter her with all the power given to his ripe manhood, and hold her pure as the very angels, so far as he had power to direct her course? No--not fatherless: the weeping girl, in the midst of her sobs and unfelt caresses over what had once been the father of her idolatry, appreciated the truth and was partially comforted. It so chanced that Dr. Pomeroy, in his domestic relations, was admirably placed for offering a home to the daughter of his dead friend. Marrying did not seem to run in the Pomeroy family, for not only was the doctor a confirmed bachelor, some years past middle age, but his only living sister had kept herself free, like him, of matrimonial chains, and presided pleasantly over his household under her maiden name of Miss Hester Pomeroy. While the removal of a young girl of eighteen to a bachelor's residence, without the cover of female society, might have seemed grossly improper in spite of the color given to it by the guardianship so lately acquired, there could be no impropriety whatever in her becoming the companion and to some extent the pupil of the bachelor's maiden sister of forty.