we can. We won't wait for any stage-coach--I know my mother wouldn't
want me to. S'pose your mother should die, or anything, before you
have a chance to tell her, Comfort Pease! I read a story once about a
little girl that told a lie, and her mother died, and she hadn't
owned up. It was dreadful. Now you get right on the sled, and I'll
drag you as far as the meeting-house, and then you can drag me as far
as the saw-mill."

Comfort huddled herself up on the sled in a miserable little bunch,
and Matilda dragged her. Her very back looked censorious to Comfort,
but finally she turned around.

"The big girls were real mean, so there; and they pestered you
dreadfully," said she. "Don't you cry any more, Comfort. Just you
tell your mother all about it, and I don't believe she'll scold much.
You can have this gold dollar to buy you another ring, anyway, if
she'll let you."

The road home from Bolton seemed much longer than the road there had
done, although the little girls hurried, and dragged each other with
fierce jerks. "Now," said Matilda, when they reached her house at
length, "I'll go home with you while you tell your mother, if you
want me to, Comfort. My mother's got home--I can see her head in the
window. I'll run and ask her."

"I'd just as lief go alone, I guess," replied Comfort, who was not
crying any more, but was quite pale. "I'm real obliged to you,
Matilda."

"Well, I'd just as lief go as not, if you wanted me to," said