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SHIANA
CHAPTER XIII.
SIVE'S NEW TACTICS.
Sheila.—Well now, Peg, how nicely Short Mary behaved after all!
Peg.—Why, what did she do, Sheila?
Sheila.—She promised Shiana that she would keep his secret, and she didn't keep it. She told it to Hannah, and she had no right to tell it to anybody. She was as much bound to keep it as a priest would be to keep a secret that he heard in confession.
Peg.—I think, Sheila, that it was for Shiana's good she told the secret to Hannah, so that Hannah should have the more respect for him.
Sheila.—All very fine! But it wasn't for his good; it was for her own. When that confusion left her mind she began to be ashamed to think that she had sent Hannah to Shiana to ask him to marry her, and she wanted to tell the whole story to Hannah so that Hannah mightn't blame her.
Peg.—Well, Sheila, if that was why she did it, I suppose Shiana himself wouldn't blame her for it.
Sheila.—He told it to her as a secret. What good is a secret unless it is kept? She ought to have left the thing as it was, and not to have talked any more about it to any living being. Shiana wouldn't blame her, do you say? All very well I That is not the way to keep a secret. I declare
