When Rover died, several years after the tragedy of which he was a
witness, Hannah felt that she had lost all that made life endurable, and
mourned for him as for a human friend. With all the faithful sagacity of
his race the noble brute had clung to her, seldom quitting her side, and
frequently, when her heart was saddest, and she was weeping by herself,
licking her face and hair, and uttering a kind of low cry, as if he
understood her perfectly; and when at last he died, it was with his head
in her lap, and her tears falling upon his shaggy face. Even to the last
he was faithful to the charge he had so long assumed. A neighbor had
come into the kitchen, and dragging himself from the mat on which he was
lying, Rover crawled to the door of the bedroom, and stretched himself
in front of it, while in the dying eyes lifted to Hannah's face, there
was an expression of unutterable love and regret for the mistress he was
leaving forever. When the visitor left the house, Hannah tried to coax
the dog back to his mat near the stove, but he was too weak to move, and
so she placed a blanket under him and kneeling by his side, put his head
in her lap, and held it there until he ceased to breathe.
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