things, and neither of
them would wish it, I am sure!'

'You men never understand these things,' I said, laughing; but at the
same time I felt very doubtful as to whether my experiment would
succeed.

Mr. Ratcliffe did accept for Friday, and now I grew very nervous about
telling Miss Rayner. She arrived, and had been two days with us before
I could pluck up courage to broach the subject, and it was Philip who
eventually did it for me.

'By the bye, Miss Rayner,' he said at breakfast on Friday morning, 'a
friend of mine is coming in to dinner to-night. I hope you won't
object. Ratcliffe is his name.'

She gave a little start, but answered, 'Of course I have no objection;
but I told Hilda I would not be drawn into society whilst up here. I
came up solely on business, and when that is over I shall go home.'

She did not ask any questions about him, and I said nothing. When he
was announced that evening she and I were alone in the drawing-room.
Certainly of the two Mr. Ratcliffe was the coolest. 'We have met
before, Miss Rayner, so need no introduction,' he said, holding out his
hand.

She took it. 'Yes,' she said, 'it was a surprise when I heard your
name mentioned. What cold weather we are having!' and we drifted into
general topics of conversation as easily as possible.

There was no constraint at the dinner-table.

Miss Rayner could always talk well, and I never heard her talk better
than on this night; more than once I saw Mr. Ratcliffe looking rather
furtively across the table at her, but nothing could have been more
indifferent than his tone when addressing her.

Then we began to talk on mission work at home and abroad. Mr.
Ratcliffe seemed thoroughly at home with this subject, whilst Miss
Rayner grew more and more silent. I was longing for an opportunity to
leave them alone, and hoped that we might succeed in doing so after
dinner, but I could not manage it. When he was taking his leave he
turned to Miss Rayner and said, 'Would you care to come down and see
over the premises of the East End Mission I am interested in? If you
have never seen London slum work, I think this would give you an
insight into it.'

And to my great delight Miss Rayner responded in the affirmative. They
arranged a time, and tried to include me in the visit, but I declined;
and when the next morning I saw the two walk off together, I turned to
Philip with a beaming face.

'There!' I exclaimed. 'I consider I have ma