Comfort sat soberly in the chimney-corner until breakfast was ready, as her mother bade her. She was very silent, and did not say anything 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 b.u.t.toned down the front with dark black b.u.t.tons, 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-sh.e.l.l comb topped it like a coronet.

Miss Tabitha's nose was red and rasped with the cold; her thin lips were blue, and her bony hands were numb; but she set copies in writing-books with stern patience. Not one to yield to a little fall in temperature was Tabitha Hanks. Moreover, she kept a sharp eye on the school, and she saw every scholar who entered, while not seeming to do so.

She saw Comfort Pease when she came shyly in, and at once noticed something peculiar about her. Comfort wore the same red tibet dress and the same gingham ap.r.o.n that she had worn the day before; her brown hair was combed off her high, serious forehead and braided in the same smooth tails; her blue eyes looked abroad in the same sober and timid fashion; and yet there was a change.

Miss Tabitha gave a quick frown and a sharp glance of her gray eyes at her, then she continued setting her copy. "That child's up to something," she thought, while she wrote out in her beautiful shaded hand, "All is not gold that glitters."

Comfort went forward to the stove, which was surrounded by a ring of girls and boys. Matilda Stebbins and Rosy were there with the rest.

Matilda moved aside at once when she saw Comfort, and made room for her near the stove.

"Hullo, Comfort Pease!" said she.

"Hullo!" returned Comfort.

Comfort held out her numb right hand to the stove, but the other she kept clenched in a little blue fist hidden in her dress folds.

"Cold, ain't it?" said Matilda.

"Dreadful," said Comfort, with a shiver.

"Why don't you warm your other hand?" asked Matilda.

"My other hand ain't cold," said Comfort. And she really did not think it was. She was not aware of any sensation in that hand, except that of the gold ring binding together the third and fourth fingers.

Pretty soon the big girl with red cheeks came in. Her cheeks were redder than ever, and her black eyes seemed to have caught something of the sparkle of the frost outside. "Hullo!" said she, when she caught sight of Comfort. "That you, Comfort Pease?"

"Hullo!" Comfort returned, faintly. She was dreadfully afraid of this big girl, who was as much as sixteen years old, and studied algebra, and was also said to have a beau.

"Got that gold ring" inquired the big girl, with a giggle, as she held out her hands to the stove.

Comfort looked at her as if she was going to cry.

"You're real mean to tease her, so there!" said Matilda Stebbins, bravely, in the face of the big girl, who persisted nevertheless.

"Got that gold ring?" she asked again, with her teasing giggle, which the others echoed.

Comfort slowly raised her left arm. She unfolded her little blue fist, and there on the third and fourth fingers of her hand shone the gold ring.

Then there was such an outcry that Miss Tabitha Hanks looked up from her copy, and kept her wary eyes fixed upon the group at the stove.

"My sakes alive, look at Comfort Pease with a gold ring on two fingers!" screamed the big girl. And all the rest joined in. The other scholars in the room came crowding up to the stove. "Le'ss see it!" they demanded of Comfort. They teased her to let them take it.

"Lemme take it for just a minute. I'll give it right back, honest,"

they begged. But Comfort was firm about that; she would not let that ring go from her own two fingers for one minute.

"Ain't she stingy with her old ring?" said Sarah Allen to Rosy Stebbins.

"Maybe it ain't real gold," whispered Rosy; but Comfort heard her.

"'Tis, too," said she, stoutly.

"It's bra.s.s; I can tell by the color," teased one of the big boys.

"'Fore I'd wear a bra.s.s ring if I was a girl!"

"It ain't bra.s.s," almost sobbed Comfort.

Miss Tabitha Hanks arose slowly and came over to the stove. She came so silently and secretly that the scholars did not notice it, and they all jumped when she spoke.

"You may all take your seats," said she, "if it is a little before nine. You can study until school begins. I can't have so much noise and confusion."

The scholars flocked discontentedly to their seats.

"It's all the fault of your old bra.s.s ring," whispered the big boy to Comfort, with a malicious grin, and she trembled.

"Your mother let you wear it, didn't she?" whispered Matilda to Comfort, as the two took their seats on the bench. But Comfort did not seem to hear her, and Miss Tabitha looked that way, and Matilda dared not whisper again. Miss Tabitha, moreover, looked as though she had heard what she said, although that did not seem possible.

However, Miss Tabitha's ears had a reputation among the scholars for almost as fabulous powers as her eyes. Matilda Stebbins was quite sure that she heard, and Miss Tabitha's after-course confirmed her opinion.

The reading-cla.s.s was out on the floor fixing its toes on the line, and Miss Tabitha walked behind it straight to Comfort.

"Comfort Pease," said she, "I don't believe your mother ever sent you to school wearing a ring after that fashion. You may take it off."

Comfort took it off. The eyes of the whole school watched her; even the reading-cla.s.s looked over its shoulders.

"Now," said Miss Tabitha, "put it in your pocket."