“Were you named after her?” inquired Comfort.

“No; her name was Ann Maria; but I look like her.  Uncle Jared will give me a gold dollar, and I’ll ask him to take us to Bolton in his sleigh Saturday afternoon, and then you can buy another ring.  Don’t you cry another mite, Comfort Pease.”

And poor Comfort tried to keep the tears back as the bell began to ring, and she and Matilda hastened to the school-house.

Matilda put up her hand and whispered to her in school-time.  “You come over to my house Saturday afternoon, and I’ll get Uncle Jared to take us,” she whispered.  And Comfort nodded soberly.  Comfort tried to learn her arithmetic lesson, but she could not remember the seven multiplication table, and said in the class that five times seven were fifty-seven, and went to the foot.  She cried at that, and felt a curious satisfaction in having something to cry for besides the loss of the ring.

Comfort did not look any more for the ring that day nor the next.  The next day was Friday, and Matilda met her at school in the morning with an air of triumph.  She plunged her hand deep in her pocket, and drew it out closed in a tight pink fist.  “Guess what I’ve got in here, Comfort Pease,” said she.  She unclosed her fingers a little at a time, until a gold dollar was visible in the hollow of her palm.  “There, what did I tell you” she said.  “And he says he’ll take us to Bolton if he don’t have to go to Ware to see about buying a horse.  You come over to-morrow, right after dinner.”

The next morning after breakfast Comfort asked her mother if she might go over to Matilda’s that afternoon.

“Do you feel fit to go?” her mother said, with a keen look at her.  Comfort was pale and sober and did not have much appetite.  It had struck her several times that her mother’s and also her grandmother’s manner toward her was a little odd, but she did not try to understand it.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Comfort.

“What are you going to do over there?”

Comfort hesitated.  A pink flush came on her face and neck.  Her mother’s eyes upon her were sharper than ever.  “Matilda said maybe her Uncle Jared would take us a sleigh-ride to Bolton,” she faltered.

“Well,” said her mother, “if you’re going a sleigh-ride you’d better take some yarn stockings to pull over your shoes, and wear my fur tippet.  It’s most too cold to go sleigh-riding, anyway.”

Directly after dinner Comfort went over to Matilda Stebbins’s, with her mother’s stone-marten tippet around her neck and the blue yarn stockings to wear in the sleigh under her arm.

But when she got to the Stebbins’s house, Matilda met her at the door with a crestfallen air.  “Only think,” said she; “ain’t it too bad?  Uncle Jared had to go to Ware to buy the horse, and we can’t go to Bolton.”

Comfort looked at her piteously.

“Guess I’d better go home,” said she.

But Matilda was gazing at her doubtfully.  “Look here,” said she.