'I am so glad and thankful,' I whispered, 'and I do hope that you will be happy.'

Miss Rayner did not speak for a minute, and then she said, in a broken voice,--

'You have brought two blessings into my life, child. This present one is big enough, but the other outweighs it by far, and my heart is too full to speak of it. As for Mr. Ratcliffe, I only hope I shall be a help to him now, and not a hindrance.'

'It is all right, Philip,' I said, as I met my husband an hour later in the hall; 'they have come together at last!'

He put his arm round me, and said gently,--

'I hope Ratcliffe will be as much helped and blessed by his wife as I have been by mine. I have experienced the truth of this, "He that getteth a wife beginneth a possession, a help like unto himself, and a pillar of rest."'

THE END