caught sight of Comfort. "That you, Comfort Pease?"

"Hullo!" Comfort returned, faintly. She was dreadfully afraid of this
big girl, who was as much as sixteen years old, and studied algebra,
and was also said to have a beau.

"Got that gold ring" inquired the big girl, with a giggle, as she
held out her hands to the stove.

Comfort looked at her as if she was going to cry.

"You're real mean to tease her, so there!" said Matilda Stebbins,
bravely, in the face of the big girl, who persisted nevertheless.

"Got that gold ring?" she asked again, with her teasing giggle, which
the others echoed.

Comfort slowly raised her left arm. She unfolded her little blue
fist, and there on the third and fourth fingers of her hand shone the
gold ring.

Then there was such an outcry that Miss Tabitha Hanks looked up from
her copy, and kept her wary eyes fixed upon the group at the stove.

"My sakes alive, look at Comfort Pease with a gold ring on two
fingers!" screamed the big girl. And all the rest joined in. The
other scholars in the room came crowding up to the stove. "Le'ss see
it!" they demanded of Comfort. They teased her to let them take it.
"Lemme take it for just a minute. I'll give it right back, honest,"
they begged. But Comfort was firm about that; she would not let that