“It is the back room up-stairs, immediately over your own, my dear; you’ll be sure to find it,” said Mrs. Corder, hurrying away.
Eudora immediately went up-stairs and rapped at the door of the apartment to which she had been directed. But receiving no answer, she gently pushed the door open and entered the room.
It was a poorly-furnished chamber, lighted by a single tallow candle, that stood upon a stand on the left side of an uncurtained bedstead, and cast its sickly beams upon the haggard face of the dying man, whose form lay extended upon the mattress, and covered with a white counterpane.
On the right side of the bed knelt his daughter, with her hands clasping his hands, and her eyes gazing fondly and anxiously into the face of her father. So completely absorbed was she in her attention to him, that the entrance of the visitor remained unnoticed.
“Father,” she said, continuing to gaze imploringly into his insensible countenance, “father, don’t you know me—won’t you speak to me? Father, it is your own Nella!”
She waited, without removing her eyes from those of the dying man, but receiving no answering word nor even a conscious look in reply to her impassioned appeal, she dropped her face upon the counterpane, and sobbed aloud.
At this moment Eudora glided to her side, laid her hand softly upon her shoulder, and spoke gently to her, saying:
“Do not weep so bitterly, Miss Wilder. There may be hope yet.”
The child sprang lightly to her feet, threw back the golden brown tresses that half veiled her face, and fixed her long-lashed, soft-gray eyes upon the beautiful vision that had entered the room, like an angel, to breathe of hope.
“I am your fellow-lodger, Miss Wilder, and having some experience in illness, I have come to render you what assistance I may,” pursued Eudora.