ly stayed at noon, but that day
they all went home. Sarah Allen had company and the Stebbinses had a
chicken dinner. So Comfort stayed alone. The other scholars lived
near enough to the school-house to go home every day unless it was
very stormy weather.

After everybody was gone, Miss Tabitha and all, the first thing
Comfort did was to slide her hand down over the bottom of her pocket,
and carefully feel of it under her dress skirt.

Her heart gave a great leap and seemed to stand still--she could not
feel any ring there.

Comfort felt again and again, with trembling fingers. She could not
believe that the ring was gone, but she certainly could not feel it.
She was quite pale, and shook as if she had a chill. She was too
frightened to cry. Had she lost Aunt Comfort's ring--the real gold
ring she had given her for her name? She looked at the pin which Miss
Tabitha had quilted into the top of her pocket, but she dared not
take it out. Suppose Miss Tabitha should ask if she had, and she had
to tell her and be whipped? That would be almost worse than losing
the ring.

Comfort had never been whipped in her life, and her blood ran cold at
the thought of it.

She kept feeling wildly of the pocket. There was a little roll of
writing-paper in it--some leaves of an old account-book which her
mother had given her to write on. All the hope she had was that the
ring had slipped inside that, and that was the reason why she could
not feel it. She longed so to take out that pin and make sure, but
she had to wait for that until she got home at night.

Comfort began to search all over the school-room floor, but all she
found were wads of paper and apple-cores, slate-pencil stumps and
pins. Then she went out in the yard and looked carefully, then she
went down the road to the old Loomis place, where she and Matilda had
walked at recess--Miss Tabitha Hanks went home that way--but no sign
of the ring could she find. The road was as smooth as a white floor,
too, for the snow was old and well trodden.

Comfort Pease went back to the school-house and opened her
dinner-pail. She looked miserably at the pancakes, the bread and
butter, and the apple-pie and cheese, and tried to eat, but she could
not. She put the cover on the pail, leaned her head on the desk in
front, and sat quite still until the scholars began to return. Then
she lifted her head, got out her spelling-book, and tried to study.
Miss Tabitha came back early, so nobody