But during this week Betty was not quite happy. She had received a copy of the rules, and had studied them very carefully. She was, in her heart of hearts, most anxious to become a Speciality. The higher life appealed to her. It appealed to her strong sense of imagination; to her passionate and really unworldly nature; to that deep love which dwelt in her heart, and which, just at present, she felt inclined to bestow on Margaret Grant. But there was Rule I. The rules had been sent, as Margaret had promised, neatly copied and in a sealed envelope, to Betty's room. She had read them upstairs all alone in the Vivians' attic. She had read them while the queer, uncanny eyes of Dickie looked at her. She certainly was not afraid of Dickie; on the contrary, she admired him. She and her sisters were very proud of his increasing size, and each day it was the turn of one girl or the other to take Dickie out of his cage and give him exercise. He was rather alarming in his movements, going at a tremendous rate, and giving more than one uncanny glance at the Vivian girl who was his jailer for the time. On this special occasion, when Betty brought the rules to the Vivian attic, she forgot all about Dickie. He was out, running round and round the attic, rushing up the walls, peering at Betty from over the top of the door, creeping as far as the ceiling and then coming down again. He was, as a rule, easily caught, for Sylvia and Hetty always kept his meal of raw meat till after he had had his exercise. But Betty had now forgotten that it was necessary to have a bait to bring Dickie once more into the shelter of his cage. She had consequently fed him first, then let him free, and then stood by the small window of the attic reading the rules of the Specialities. It was Rule I. which troubled her. Rule I. ran as follows: "Each girl gives perfect confidence to her fellow members, keeps no secret to herself which those members ought to know, is ready to consider each member as though she were her own sister, to help her in time of trouble and to rejoice with her in periods of joy."