"We've got time to run down to the old Loomis place and back before the bell rings," said Matilda. "If you stay here they'll all tease you dreadfully to show that ring, and if you do she'll whip you. She always does what she says she will." The two girls got back to the school-house just as the bell rang, and, beyond sundry elbow-nudges and teasing whispers as they went in, Comfort had no trouble. She took her seat and meekly opened her geography. Once in a while she wondered, with a qualm of anxiety, if her ring was safe. She dared not even feel of her pocket under her dress. Whenever she thought of it Miss Tabitha seemed to be looking straight at her. Poor Comfort had a feeling that Miss Tabitha could see her very thoughts. The Stebbinses and Sarah Allen usually stayed at noon, but that day they all went home. Sarah Allen had company and the Stebbinses had a chicken dinner. So Comfort stayed alone. The other scholars lived near enough to the school-house to go home every day unless it was very stormy weather. After everybody was gone, Miss Tabitha and all, the first thing Comfort did was to slide her hand down over the bottom of her pocket, and carefully feel of it under her dress skirt. Her heart gave a great leap and seemed to stand still--she could not feel any ring there. Comfort felt again and again, with trembling fingers. She could not believe that the ring was gone, but she certainly could not feel it. She was quite pale, and shook as if she had a chill. She was too frightened to cry. Had she lost Aunt Comfort's ring--the real gold ring she had given her for her name? She looked at the pin which Miss Tabitha had quilted into the top of her pocket, but she dared not take it out. Suppose Miss Tabitha should ask if she had, and she had to tell her and be whipped? That would be almost worse than losing the ring. Comfort had never been whipped in her life, and her blood ran cold at the thought of it. She kept feeling wildly of the pocket. There was a little roll of writing-paper in it--some leaves of an old account-book which her mother had given her to write on. All the hope she had was that the ring had slipped inside that, and that was the reason why she could not feel it. She longed so to take out that pin and make sure, but she had to wait for that until she got home at night. Comfort began to search all over the school-room floor, but all she found were wads of paper and apple-cores, slate-pencil stumps and pins. Then she went out in the yard and looked carefully, then she went down the road to the old Loomis place, where she and Matilda had walked at recess--Miss Tabitha Hanks went home that way--but no sign of the ring could she find. The road was as smooth as a white floor, too, for the snow was old and well trodden.