“Certainly it is sometimes right,” said Charles Osmond. “For instance, if you were to promise me faithfully to pick some one’s pocket on your way home, you would be quite right to break a promise which you never had any right to make. Or if I were to say to you, ‘On no account tell any one at your home that you have been here talking to me,’ and you agreed, yet such a promise would rightly be broken, because no outsider has any right to come between you and your parents.” “My father and mother are dead,” said Swanhild. “I live with my brother and sister, who are much older than I am—I mean really very old, you know—twenty-three. They are my guardians; and what troubles me is that last summer I did something and promised some one that I would never tell them, and now I am afraid I ought not to have done it.” “What makes you think that?” “Well, ever since then there has seemed to be a difference at home, and, though I thought what I did would help Frithiof and Sigrid, and make every one happier, yet it seems to have somehow brought a cloud over the house. They have not spoken to me about it, but ever since then Frithiof has had such a sad look in his eyes.” “Was it anything wrong that you promised to do—anything that in itself was wrong, I mean?” “Oh, no,” said Swanhild; “the only thing that could have made it wrong was my doing it for this particular person.” “I am afraid I can not follow you unless you tell me a little more definitely. To whom did you make this promise? To any one known to your brother and sister?” “Yes, they both know her; we knew her in Norway, and she was to have married Frithiof; but when he came over to England he found her just going to be married to some one else. I think it was that which changed him so very much; but perhaps it was partly because at the same time we lost all our money.” “Do your brother and sister still meet this lady?” “Oh, no; they never see her now, and never speak of her; Sigrid is so very angry with her because she did not treat Frithiof well. But I can’t help loving her still, she is so very beautiful; and I think, perhaps, she is very sorry that she was so unkind to Frithiof.” “How did you come across her again?” asked Charles Osmond. “Quite accidentally in the street, as I came home from school,” said Swanhild. “She asked me so many questions and seemed so sorry to know that we were so very poor, and when she asked me to do this thing for her I only thought how kind she was, and I did it, and promised that I would never tell.” “She had no right to make you promise that, for probably your brother would not care for you still to know her, and certainly would not wish to be under any obligation to her.” “No; that was the reason why it was all to be a secret,” said Swanhild. “And I never quite understood that it was wrong till the other day, when I was reading the newspaper about her, and Frithiof found me and was so very angry, and threw the paper in the fire.”