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 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.