"Real gold?" asked Rosy, in a subdued voice.

"Yes."

Some other girls came up--some of the older ones, with their hair
done up; and even some of the boys, towering lankily on the
outskirts. Not one of these scholars in this country district school
fifty years ago had ever owned a gold ring. All they had ever seen
were their mothers' well-worn wedding-circlets.

"Comfort Pease has got a real gold ring," went from one to the other.

"Why don't she wear it, then?" demanded one of the big girls. She had
very red cheeks, and her black hair was in two glossy braids, crossed
and pinned at the back of her head, and surmounted by her mother's
shell comb she had let her wear to school that day. She had come out
to recess without her hood to show it.

"She's waiting for her hand to grow to it," explained Matilda, to
whom Comfort had shyly whispered the whole story.

"Hold up your hand," ordered the big girl; and Comfort held up her
little hand pink with the cold.

"H'm! looks big enough," said the big girl, and she adjusted her
shell comb.

"I call it a likely story," said another big girl, in an audible
whisper.