Comfort pulled off her mittens, thrust her hand in her pocket
dangling against her blue woolen petticoat, and drew out the gold
ring.

Then she slipped it on over the third and fourth fingers of her left
hand, put her mittens on again, and went on.

It was quite still in the school-house, although school had not
begun, because Miss Tabitha Hanks had arrived. Her spare form, stiff
and wide, and perpendicular as a board, showed above the desk. She
wore a purple merino dress buttoned down the front with dark black
buttons, and a great breastpin of twisted gold. Her hair was looped
down over her ears in two folds like shiny drab satin. It scarcely
looked like hair, the surface was so smooth and unbroken; and a great
tortoise-shell comb topped it like a coronet.

Miss Tabitha's nose was red and rasped with the cold; her thin lips
were blue, and her bony hands were numb; but she set copies in
writing-books with stern patience. Not one to yield to a little fall
in temperature was Tabitha Hanks. Moreover, she kept a sharp eye on
the school, and she saw every scholar who entered, while not seeming
to do so.

She saw Comfort Pease when she came shyly in, and at once noticed
something peculiar about her. Comfort wore the same red tibet dress
and the same gingham apron that she had worn the day before; her
brown hair was combed off her high, serious forehead and braided in
the same smooth tails; her blue eyes looked abroad in the same sober
and timid fashion; and yet there was a change.