Forty minutes later, and from the seat by the door, a little bent, weird-looking woman arose, and making her way through the crowd, advanced until she stood upon the stage, then stretching her long, bony finger toward Arabella, who had returned, she said, "I am a lover of justice, and should I hold my peace, the very stones would cry out against me. Yonder young lady has no right to the prize, for the piece which she has palmed off as her own appeared in the _Woodland Gazette_, a paper published in an obscure New Hampshire village. How she came by it, she can, perhaps, explain, but I cannot." At the commencement of this strange speech, Arabella arose as if to defy the woman, who was thus blasting her good name, but at the mention of the _Woodland Gazette_ she fainted and was carried from the room. Madame Duvant now came forward and addressed a few low-spoken words to the woman, who answered aloud, "I have the best of reasons for what I have said. My son, who lives in New Hampshire, occasionally sends me the _Gazette_, and in one number, which came nearly a year ago, appeared this very article, taken originally from an old English paper." "Prove it! Produce the paper!" fiercely ejaculated Mrs. Greenleaf, as she left the room in quest of her daughter. "I can do so," answered the woman; "I never tore up a newspaper in my life, and if the audience will wait for the space of ten minutes, I can show them the very article"--saying which she glided noiselessly from the room. She was a strange, half-crazy old creature, of wonderful memory, who occupied a small cottage in the suburbs of the village, and many doubts were expressed as to the veracity of her statement. But these were soon put to flight by her reappearance. Infolding the dingy yellow paper, she read aloud to her astonished hearers the article which proved to have been taken from the "London Examiner". There was now no longer a shadow of doubt and the prize was withdrawn from the treacherous Arabella, and as Mildred's composition was pronounced the next in order, it was bestowed upon her. Mollified, indignant and almost frantic at this public disgrace, Arabella finally confessed to having stolen the piece from a paper sent her some months before by a former schoolmate. The next morning she left the village, heaping her pent-up wrath upon the head of her innocent cousin, who was destined in more ways than one to rival her.