She sat speechless with wonder, indignation, and dismay, and though several other inferior compositions were read, she was so absorbed in reverie, that she heard no more until she was startled by Mr. Wentworth’s voice calling her by name. She looked up. In his hand was the prize—a richly chased, golden pencil-case, suspended to a chain of the same material. The sound, the sight recalled her bewildered faculties, and ere she reached the desk, she had formed a resolution, which, however, it required all her native strength of soul to put in practice. “Miss Carlton, the prize is yours!” and the teacher leaned forward to throw the chain around her neck. The child drew back— “No, sir,” she said in a low, but firm and distinct voice, looking up bravely in his face, “I did not write the story you have read.” “Not write it!” exclaimed Mr. Wentworth, “Why, then, does it bear your name? Am I to understand, Miss Carlton, that you have asked another’s assistance in your composition, and that you now repent the deception?” Poor Harriet! this was too much! Her dark eyes first flashed, and then filled with tears; her lip trembled with emotion, and she paused a moment, as if disdaining a reply to this unmerited charge. A slight and sneering laugh from the beauty aroused her, and she answered, respectfully but firmly, “The story, I did write, was in that envelope yesterday. Some one has changed it without my knowledge. It was not so good as that you have read; so I must not take the prize.” There was a murmur of applause through the assembly, and the teacher bent upon the blushing girl a look of approval, which amply repaid her for all the embarrassment she had suffered. Aunt Eloise took advantage of the momentary excitement to steal unobserved from the room. Harriet took her seat, and Miss Angelina Burton was next called up. The portly matron leaned smilingly forward; and the graceful, little beauty, already affecting the airs of a fine lady, sauntered up to the desk and languidly reached out her hand for the prize. “I cannot say much for your taste in selection, Miss Burton. I do not admire your author’s sentiments. The next time you wish to make an extract, you must allow me to choose for you. There are better things than this, even in the trashy magazine from which you have copied it.” And with this severe, but justly merited reproof of the imposition that had been practiced, he handed the young lady, not the prize, which she expected, but the MS. essay on Friendship, which she had copied, word for word, from an old magazine. The portly lady turned very red, and the beauty, bursting into tears of anger and mortification, returned to her seat discomfited.