"Aunt Lucy says that Cornelia told her that Charlie reported that John had eaten ten slices of mince-pie to-day. He is very sick, and I'll send him home to his mother."
"But I only said, 'Cornelia and Charlie both told me John hadn't eaten one slice of mince-pie to-day. I'm afraid he is sick, and it is well he is going home to his mother!'
"Rather a difference! But who altered it? It seems to me Cornelia looks mischievous!"
"O, that's a way I have! Poor little me, all the mischief is put on my shoulders! But—honest now—Tom whispered so low, that I thought it might as well be ten slices as one!"
"And now change places," said Alice, "and put Cornelia head as a reward of merit—we'll fix her; and then we can try 'Whispering Gallery' again."
No sooner said than done, and Cornelia started the game by saying to her nearest neighbor, "How sorry I am to leave The Grange! I never was so happy in all my life; and Charlie says so too!"
But the outcome of this very innocent remark was as follows: "How sorry I am I came to The Grange! I never will be happy again in all my life, and Charlie says so, too!"
"Are you sure there was no cheating?" asked Mr. Wyndham.
"No, dear uncle, impossible," replied Cornelia. "I couldn't, and they wouldn't; they are all quite too good for that; every one of them, except, perhaps, Charlie, who is in a peculiar sense my own first cousin. But it seems to be a property of a whisper to be a twister; it is sure to get in a tangle, and comes out quite different from the way you started it."
"Just so," answered up Charlie. "It is like what they say happens in Cincinnati. You put in a grunter at one end of the machine, and in a few minutes it comes out in the form of bacon, hams, lard, sausages, and hair-brushes!"