dared tease her; and the cold
was so bitter and the sky so overcast that they were not obliged to
go out at recess. Comfort studied and recited, and never a smile came
on her pale, sober little face. Matilda whispered to know if she were
sick, but Comfort only shook her head.

Sometimes Comfort saw Miss Tabitha watching her with an odd
expression, and she wondered forlornly what it meant. She did not
dream of going to Miss Tabitha with her trouble. She felt quite sure
she would get no sympathy in that quarter.

All the solace Comfort had was that one little forlorn hope that the
ring might be in that roll of paper, and she should find it when she
got home.

It seemed to her that school never would be done. She thought wildly
of asking Miss Tabitha if she could not go home because she had the
toothache. Indeed, her tooth did begin to ache, and her head too; but
she waited, and sped home like a rabbit when she was let out at last.
She did not wait even to say a word to Matilda. Comfort, when she got
home, went right through the sitting-room and upstairs to her own
chamber.

"Where are you going, Comfort?" her mother called after her.

"What ails the child?" said Grandmother Atkins.

"I'm coming right back," Comfort panted as she fled.

The minute she was in her own cold little chamber she took the pin
from her pocket, drew forth the roll of paper, and smoothed it out.
The ring was not there. Then she turned the pocket and examined it.
There was a little rip in the seam.

"Comfort, Comfort!" called her mother from the foot of the stairs.
"You'll get your death of cold up there," chimed in her grandmother
from the room beyond.

"I'm coming," Comfort gasped in reply. She turned the pocket back and
went downstairs.

It was odd that, although Comfort looked so disturbed, neither her
mother nor grandmother asked her what was the matter. They looked at
her, then exchanged a meaning look with each other. And all her
mother said was to bid her go and sit down by the fire and toast her
feet. She also mixed a bowl of hot ginger-tea plentifully sweetened
with molasses, and bade her drink that, so she could not catch cold;
and yet there was something strange in her manner all the time. She
made no remark, either, when she opened Comfort's dinner-pail and saw
how little had been eaten. She merely showed it silently to
Grandmother Atkins behind Comfort's back, and they nodded to each
other with solemn meaning.

However,