thing
during breakfast unless some one asked her a question.

When she started for school her mother and grandmother stood in the
window and watched her.

It was a very cold morning, and Mrs. Pease had put her green shawl on
Comfort over her coat; and the little girl looked very short and
stout as she trudged along between the snow-ridges which bordered the
path, and yet there was a forlorn air about her.

"I don't know as the child was fit to go to school to-day," Mrs.
Pease said, doubtfully.

"She didn't look very well, and she didn't eat much breakfast,
either," said Grandmother Atkins.

"She was always crazy after hot pancakes, too," said her mother.

"Hadn't you better call her back, Em'ly?"

"No, I won't," said Mrs. Pease, turning away from the window. "She's
begun to go to school, and I'm not going to take her out unless I'm
sure she ain't able to go."

So Comfort Pease went on to school; and she had the gold ring in her
pocket, which was tied around her waist with a string under her dress
skirt, as was the fashion then. Comfort often felt of the pocket to
be sure the ring was safe as she went along. It was bitterly cold;
the snow creaked under her stout shoes. Besides the green shawl, her
red tippet was wound twice around her neck and face; but her blue
eyes peering over it were full of tears which the frosty wind forced
into them, and her breath came short and quick. When she came in
sight of the school-house she could see the straight column of smoke
rising out of the chimney, it was so thin in the cold air. There were
no scholars out in the yard, only a group coming down the road from
the opposite direction. It was too cold to play out of doors before
school, as usual.

Comfort pulled off her mittens, thrust her hand in her pocket
dangling against her blue woolen petticoat, and drew out the gold
ring.

Then she slipped it on over the third and fourth fingers of her left
hand, put her mittens on again, and went on.

It was quite still in the school-house, although school had not
begun, because Miss Tabitha Hanks had arrived. Her spare form, stiff
and wide, and perpendicular as a board, showed above the desk. She
wore a purple merino dress buttoned down the front with dark black
buttons, and a great breastpin of twisted gold. Her hair was looped
down over her ears in two folds like shiny drab satin. It scarcely
looked like hair, the surface was so smooth and unbroken; and a great
tortoise-shell