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“I’m dreadfully afraid she will,” returned Comfort’s mother.

“You’ll have to tell her.”

Mrs. Pease turned on Grandmother Atkins, and New England motherhood was strong in her face. “Mother,” said she, “I don’t want Comfort to be sick, and she sha’n’t be if I can help it; but I’ve got a duty to her that’s beyond looking out for her health. She’s got a lesson to learn that’s more important than any she’s got in school, and I’m afraid she won’t learn it at all unless she learns it by the hardest; and it won’t do for me to help her.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right, Em’ly,” said Grandmother Atkins; “but I declare I’m dreadfully sorry for the child.”

“You ain’t any sorrier than I am,” said Comfort’s mother. And she wiped her eyes now and then as she cleared away the breakfast dishes.

As for Comfort, she went on her way to school, looking as industriously and anxiously at the ground as if she were a little robin seeking for her daily food. Under the snowy blackberry-vines peered Comfort, under frozen twigs, and in the blue hollows of the snow, seeking, as it were, in the little secret places of nature for her own little secret of childish vanity and disobedience. It made no difference to her that it was not reasonable to look on that part of the road, since she could not have lost the ring there. She had a desperate hope, which was not affected by reason at all, and she determined to look everywhere.

It was very cold still, and when she came in sight of the school-house not a scholar was to be seen. Either they had not arrived, or were huddling over the red-hot stove inside.

Comfort trudged past the school-house and went down the road to the old Loomis place. She searched again every foot of the road, but there was no gleam of gold in its white, frozen surface. There was the cold sparkle of the frost-crystals, and that was all.

Comfort went back. At the turn of that road she saw Matilda Stebbins coming down the other. The pink tip of Matilda’s nose, and her winking black eyes, just appeared above her red tippet.

“Hullo!” she sung out, in a muffled voice.

“Hullo!” responded Comfort, faintly.

Matilda looked at her curiously when she came up.

“What’s the matter?” said she.

“Nothing,” replied Comfort.

“I thought you acted funny. What have you been up that road for?”

Comfort walked along beside Matilda in silence.

“What have you been up that road for?” repeated Matilda.

“Won’t you ever tell?” said Comfort.

“No, I won’t:

“Honest and true, Black and blue, Lay me down and cut me in two.”

“Well, I’ve lost it.”

Matilda knew at once what Comfort meant. “You ain’t!” she cried, stopping short and opening wide eyes of dismay at Comfort over the red tippet.

“Yes, I have.”

“Where’d you lose it?”

“I felt of my pocket after I got back to school yesterday, after we’d been up to the old Loomis house, and I couldn’t find the ring.”

“My!” said Matilda.

Comfort gave a stifled sob.

Matilda turned short around with a jerk. “Le’ss go up that road and hunt again,” said she; “there’s plenty of time before the bell rings. Come along, Comfort Pease.”

So the two little girls went up the road and hunted, but they did not find the ring. “Nobody would have picked it up and kept it; everybody around here is honest,” said Matilda. “It’s dreadfully funny.”

Comfort wept painfully under the folds of her mother’s green shawl as they went back.

“Did your mother scold you?” asked Matilda. There was something very innocent and sympathizing and honest about Matilda’s black eyes as she asked the question.

“No,” faltered Comfort. She did not dare tell Matilda that her mother knew nothing at all about it.

Matilda, as they went along, put an arm around Comfort under her shawl. “Don’t cry; it’s too bad,” said she. But Comfort wept harder.

“Look here,” said Matilda. “Comfort, your mother wouldn’t let you buy another ring with that gold dollar, would she?”