"Flossy, I want you to tell me something. I have heard something so strange; I think it is not so, but you can tell me. I want to know if you think you are a Christian?"
I wonder if Flossy has any idea, even now, how strangely Ruth's heart beat as she asked that simple question. It seemed to involve a great deal to her. She waited for the answer.
There was no hesitation and no indecision about Flossy's answer. Her cheeks took a pink tint, but her voice was clear.
"I _know_ I am, Ruth. I do not even have to speak with hesitancy. I am so sure that Christ is my Friend, and I grow so much surer of it every day, that I can not doubt it any more than I can doubt that I am walking down this path with you."
And then, again, Ruth's astonishment was in part lost in that absorbing question:
"It is a simple little story," Flossy said. And then she began at the beginning and told her little bit of experience, fresh in her heart, dating only a few days back, and full to the brim with peace and gladness to her.
"But I don't see," Ruth said, perplexed. "I don't find out what to _do_. I want to be told how to do it, and none of you tell me; you seem to have just resolved about it, and not _done_ anything. I have gone so far myself. Such a night as last night was, Flossy! Oh, you can never imagine it!"
And then she told her story, as much of it as _could_ be told; of the horror and the thick darkness that had enveloped her she could only hint.
What an eager flash there was in Flossy's bright eyes as she listened.
"When you said that!" she began, eagerly, as Ruth paused. "When you said, 'I will do it.' What then? Did you feel just as you did before?"
"No," Ruth said, "not at all. The night had gone by that time. As I looked about me I realized that it was daylight, and I fancied that my feelings were the result of a highly excited state of nerves. But the resolve was not to be accounted for in any such way. I meant that. The horror, though, of which I had been telling you was quite gone. It was as if there had been a fearful storm, with the constant roll of thunder, and suddenly a calm. I hadn't the least feeling of fear or dread, and I haven't had all day; but to-night I may have the very same experience."