"Well, I didn't more than half believe it myself; but the story is going that your Horace stole his Aunt Louise's breastpin, and sold it to a peddler for a rusty gun." Miss Louise laughed merrily this time.
"I did lose my pearl brooch," said she, "but Prudy found it yesterday in an old glass candlestick." "What an absurd report!" said Mrs.Clifford, quite annoyed.

"I hope the children are not to be suspected every time their _Aunt Louise_ misses anything!" "They said you had decided to take Horace to the Reform School," added Miss Whiting, "but your friends begged you to leave him at Augusta in somebody's house locked up, with bread and water to eat." "Now tell me where you heard all this," said Aunt Louise.
"Why, Mrs.Grant told me that Mrs.Small said that Mrs.Gordon told _her_.

I hope you'll excuse me for speaking of it: but I thought you ought to know." Miss Polly Whiting was a harmless woman, who went from family to family doing little "jobs" of work.

She never said what was not true, did no mischief, and in her simple way was quite attached to the Parlins.
"I heard something more that made me very angry," said she, following Miss Louise into the pantry.

"Mrs.Grant says Mrs.Gray is very much surprised to find your mother doesn't give good measure when she sells milk!" Aunt Louise was so indignant at this that she went at once and told her mother.
"It is a little too much to be borne," said she; "the neighbors may invent stories about Horace, if they have nothing better to do, but they shall not slander my mother!" The two little girls, who were the unconscious cause of all this mischief, were just returning from Mrs.Gray's.
"O, grandma," said Dotty, coming in with the empty pail; "she says she don't want any more milk this summer, and I'm ever so glad! Come, Prudy, let's go and swing." "Stop," said Mrs.Parlin; "why does Mrs.Gray say she wants no more milk ?" "'Cause," replied Dotty, "'cause our cow is dry, or their cow is dry, or Mrs.Gordon has some to sell.