“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.