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.
"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.
Dr. Pomeroy's residence was at that time within the city limits, though in that extreme upper section bordering on the Schuylkill; but his practice had been gradually extending out into the country over the river; and ideas long cherished, of a residence beyond the reach of the noises of the great city, were gradually becoming realized. At the time of the death of his friend, that mansion which it has just been our sad privilege to enter, was in the course of erection; and in the spring which followed he took up his abode within it, with his sister, his ward, and that array of domestics necessary for a man of his supposed wealth and somewhat expensive habits.
It did indeed seem that Eleanor Hill was blessed among orphans if not among women. Her tears dried easily, as they had good cause to do. The residence to which she had been removed was a very handsome and even a luxurious one; Miss Hester Pomeroy was one of those good easy souls who neither possess any strength of character themselves nor envy it in others,—with an almost idolizing admiration of her gifted and popular brother, and a belief that no movement of his could be other than the best possible under the circumstances; and the doctor himself, a man of fine education, distinguished manners, admitted professional skill, and an uprightness of carriage which seemed to more than atone for any lack of suavity in his demeanor—the doctor himself appeared to be anxious, from the first, that no shadow of accusation should lie against his name, of inattention to the ward committed to his charge. From the day of her coming into his house, whenever his professional engagements would allow, he spent much time in the society of Eleanor, greatly to the delight of Miss Hester, who had thought herself very unattractive company and wished that her gifted brother had some one in the house more worthy to be his companion. He selected books for the young girl; brought home others; directed her studies into channels calculated to form her mind (at least some portions of it); invited the young people of the neighborhood to meet her; drove her out frequently; took such care of her health as he might have done of that of a darling daughter or an idolized sweetheart; and gave evidence that none could doubt, of his intention to fulfil in the most liberal and conscientious manner the sacred promises he had made over the death-bed of her father.