SHIANA
103
to you, Peg, I didn't think she would have told it, even to Hannah.
Peg.—It was well for her, Sheila, that you were not there when she was telling it to Hannah.
Sheila.—You may say so! I promise you I would have said something to her that Hannah didn't say. "Have no fear, Shiana," said she, "I will keep your secret." She kept it nicely too! Blabbing it out as soon as she began to talk to Hannah! If any other woman than Short Mary had done it, I wouldn't be half so much surprised; but she that I thought would not let out a secret if she were to be torn between horses!
Nora.—Upon my word, Sheila, there are many people who wouldn't let a secret escape if they were to be torn between horses, and yet would let it go from them when nobody was asking them for it.
Sheila.—If so, those are not people like Short Mary.
Kate.—But listen, Sheila, she had told Hannah as great a secret as that already, and what harm was it to tell her another secret as well?
Sheila.—That one was her own. There was nothing to hinder her doing what she liked with her own secret, but it is not the same with another person's secret.
Peg.—You are right, Sheila; but understand this: a good secret and a bad secret are not the same thing. The secret that would have injured Shiana, he never told at all. The secret he told to Short Mary was one that she was not bound, in that strict sense, to keep, when she knew that it would be of more service than injury to
