Mopsey, in her solicitude to have the death-bed of poor blind Sorrel properly attended, had brought with her, in the event of the paling or obscuration of the moon, a dark lantern, which she held tenderly aside as though the poor old creature still possessed her sight; immoveable herself as though she had been a swarthy image in stone, while, on the other side, William Peabody, near her head, stood gazing upon the animal with a fixed intensity, breathing hard and watching her dying struggle with a rigid steadiness of feature almost painful to behold. "Has carried me to mill many a day," he said; "some pleasantest hours of my life spent upon her back, sauntering along at early day." "Your mother rode her to meeting," Sylvester addressed his second son, "on your wedding-day, Oliver. Sorrel was of a long-lived race." "She was the gentlest horse-creature you ever owned, father," added Mrs. Carrack, turning affectionately toward old Sylvester, "and humored us girls when we rode her as though she had been a blood-relation." "I'm not so sure of that," Mr. Tiffany Carrack rejoined, "for she has dumped me in a ditch more than once." "That was your own careless riding, Tiffany," said the Captain, "I don't believe she had the least ill-will towards any living creature, man or beast." It was observed that whenever William Peabody spoke, blind Sorrel turned her feeble head in that direction, as if she recognised and singled out his voice from all the others. "She knows your voice, father, even in her darkness," said the Captain, "as the sailor tells his old captain's step on deck at night." "Well she may, Charles," the merchant replied, "for she was foaled the same day I was born." The old creature moaned and heaved her side fainter and fainter. "Speak to her, William," said the old grandfather. William Peabody bent down, and in a tremulous voice said, "Sorrel, do you know me?" The poor blind creature lifted up her aged head feebly towards him, heaved her weary side, gasped once and was gone. The moon, which had been shining with a clear and level light upon the group of faces, dipped at that moment behind the orchard-trees, and at the same instant the light in the lantern flickering feebly, was extinguished. "What do you mean by putting the light out, Mopsey," old Sylvester asked. "I knew de old lamp would be goin' out, Massa, soon as ever blind Sorrel die; I tremble so I do' no what I'm saying." It was poor Mopsey's agitation which had shaken out the light. "Never shall we know a more faithful servant, a truer friend, than poor blind Sorrel," they all agreed; and bound still closer together by so simple a bond as common sympathy in the death of the poor old blind family horse, they returned within the homestead.