doubt that I am walking
down this path with you."

And then, again, Ruth's astonishment was in part lost in that absorbing
question:

"How did you get to be one?"

"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."

"No, you will not," Flossy said, her voice aglow with feeling and with
joy. "Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! There _is_ no night! You have got beyond it. I
tell you, you have come into God's light! And isn't it blessed? You are
a Christian now."

"But," protested Ruth, utterly bewildered, "I do not understand you,
and I don't think you understand yourself. In what way am I different
from what I was yesterday? How can I be lost in God's sight one moment
and accepted the next?"

"Easily; oh, _so_ easily! Don't you see? Why, if I had been coaxing you
for a year to give me something, and you had steadily refused, but if
suddenly you had said to me, 'Yes. I will; I have changed my mind; I
will give it to you,' wouldn't there be a difference? Wouldn't I know
that I was to have it? And couldn't I thank you then, and tell you how
glad I was, just t