“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.

It was odd that, although Comfort looked so disturbed, neither her mother nor grandmother asked her what was the matter.  They looked at her, then exchanged a meaning look with each other.  And all her mother said was to bid her go and sit down by the fire and toast her feet.  She also mixed a bowl of hot ginger-tea plentifully sweetened with molasses, and bade her drink that, so she could not catch cold; and yet there was something strange in her manner all the time.  She made no remark, either, when she opened Comfort’s dinner-pail and saw how little had been eaten.  She merely showed it silently to Grandmother Atkins behind Comfort’s back, and they nodded to each other with solemn meaning.

However, Mrs. Pease made the cream-toast that Comfort loved for supper, and obliged her to eat a whole plate of it.

“I can’t have her get sick,” she said to Grandmother Atkins after Comfort had gone to bed that night.

“She ain’t got enough constitution, poor child,” assented Grandmother Atkins.

Mrs. Pease opened the door and listened.  “I believe she’s crying now,” said she.  “I guess I’ll go up there.”

“I would if I was you,” said Grandmother Atkins.

Comfort’s sobs sounded louder and louder all the way, as her mother went upstairs.

“What’s the matter, child?” she asked when she opened the door; and there was still something strange in her tone.  While there was concern there was certainly no surprise.

“My tooth aches dreadfully,” sobbed Comfort.

“You had better have some cotton-wool and paregoric on it, then,” said her mother.  Then she went downstairs for cotton-wool and paregoric, and she ministered to Comfort’s aching tooth; but no cotton-wool or paregoric was there for Comfort’s aching heart.

She sobbed so bitterly that her mother looked alarmed.  “Comfort, look here; is there anything else the matter?” she asked, suddenly; and she put her hand on Comfort’s shoulder.

“My tooth aches dreadfully—­oh!” Comfort wailed.

“If your tooth aches so bad as all that, you’d better go to Dr. Hutchins in the morning and have it out,” said her mother.  “Now you’d better lie still and try to go to sleep, or you’ll be sick.”