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.

Matilda looked at her curiously when she came up.

“What’s the matter?” said she.

“Nothing,” replied Comfort.

“I thought you acted funny.  What have you been up that road for?”

Comfort walked along beside Matilda in silence.

“What have you been up that road for?” repeated Matilda.

“Won’t you ever tell?” said Comfort.

“No, I won’t: 

             “Honest and true,
  Black and blue,
  Lay me down and cut me in two.”

“Well, I’ve lost it.”

Matilda knew at once what Comfort meant.  “You ain’t!” she cried, stopping short and opening wide eyes of dismay at Comfort over the red tippet.

“Yes, I have.”

“Where’d you lose it?”

“I felt of my pocket after I got back to school yesterday, after we’d been up to the old Loomis house, and I couldn’t find the ring.”

“My!” said Matilda.

Comfort gave a stifled sob.

Matilda turned short around with a jerk.  “Le’ss go up that road and hunt again,” said she; “there’s plenty of time before the bell rings.  Come along, Comfort Pease.”

So the two little girls went up the road and hunted, but they did not find the ring.  “Nobody would have picked it up and kept it; everybody around here is honest,” said Matilda.  “It’s dreadfully funny.”

Comfort wept painfully under the folds of her mother’s green shawl as they went back.

“Did your mother scold you?” asked Matilda.  There was something very innocent and sympathizing and honest about Matilda’s black eyes as she asked the question.

“No,” faltered Comfort.  She did not dare tell Matilda that her mother knew nothing at all about it.

Matilda, as they went along, put an arm around Comfort under her shawl.  “Don’t cry; it’s too bad,” said she.  But Comfort wept harder.

“Look here,” said Matilda.  “Comfort, your mother wouldn’t let you buy another ring with that gold dollar, would she?”

“That gold dollar’s to keep,” sobbed Comfort; “it ain’t to spend.”  And, indeed, she felt as if spending that gold dollar would be almost as bad as losing the ring; the bare idea of it horrified her.

“Well, I didn’t s’pose it was,” said Matilda, abashedly.  “I just happened to think of it.”  Suddenly she gave Comfort a little poke with her red-mittened hand.  “Don’t you cry another minute, Comfort Pease,” she cried.  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  I’ll ask my Uncle Jared to give me a gold dollar, and then I’ll give it to you to buy a gold ring.”

“I don’t believe he will,” sobbed Comfort.

“Yes, he will.  He always gives me everything I ask him for.  He thinks more of me than he does of Rosy and Imogen, you know, ’cause he was going to get married once, when he was young, and she died, and I look like her.”