"I have told you as much as I can tell you with regard to the packet, but there is something else to follow. I had made up my mind to keep the packet, being fully persuaded in my heart that Aunt Frances meant me to do so; but when Sir John Crawford came to Aberdeenshire, and visited Craigie Muir, and spent a night with us in the little gray house preparatory to bringing us to Haddo Court, he mentioned that he had received, amongst different papers of my aunt's, a document or letter--I forget which--alluding to this packet. He said she was anxious that the packet should be carefully kept for me and for my sisters, and he asked me boldly and directly if I knew anything about it. I don't excuse myself in the least, and, as a matter of fact, I don't blame myself. I told him I didn't know anything about it. He believed me. You see, girls, that I told a lie, and was not at all sorry. "We came here. I put the packet away into a safe hiding-place. Then, somehow or other, you all took me up and were specially kind to me, and I think my head was a bit turned; it seemed so charming to be a Speciality and to have a great deal to do with you, Margaret, and indeed with you all more or less. So I said to myself, I haven't broken Rule No. I., for that rule says that 'no secret is to be kept by one Speciality from another if the other ought really to know about it.' I tried to persuade myself that you need not know about the packet--that it was no concern of yours. But, somehow, I could not go on. There was something about the life here, and--and Mrs. Haddo, and the chapel, and you, Margaret, which made the whole thing impossible. I have not been one scrap frightened into telling you this. But now I have told you. I do possess the packet, and I did tell a lie about it. That is all." Betty ceased speaking. There was profound stillness in the room. Then Margaret said very gently, "Betty, I am sure that I am speaking in the interests of all who love you. You will tell this story to-morrow morning to dear Mrs. Haddo, and it will rest with her whether you remain a member of the Specialities or not. Your frank confession to us, although it is a little late in the day, and the peculiar circumstances attending your gaining possession of the packet, incline us to be lenient to you--if only, Betty, you will now do the one thing left to you, and give the packet up--put it, in short, into Mrs. Haddo's hands, so that she may keep it until Sir John Crawford, who is your guardian, returns."