Free The Story of a Whim by Grace Livingston Hill

this little piece out of your heart-life, this story of your vision of Jesus Christ, for I believe it was such.
    "I have not read that part of your letter to the other girls. I could not. It seemed sacred; and, while I know they would have sympathized and understood, yet I felt perhaps you wrote it just to me, and I would keep it sacred for you.
    "And so I am sending you this little letter just to speak of that to you. I shall write in my other letter with the rest of the girls, all about the Sunday school, how glad we are, and all about the pictures how fine they are; and you will understand. But this letter is all about your own self.
    "I have stopped most urgent work upon my thesis to write this, too; so you may know how important I consider you, Christie. I could not sleep last night, for praying about you."
    It was a wonderful revelation to Christie, that story of the longing of another soul that his might be saved. To the lonely young fellow, grown used as he was to thinking that not another one in all the world cared for him, it seemed almost unbelievable.
    He forgot for the time that she considered him another girl like herself. He forgot everything save her pleading that he would give himself to Jesus. She wrote of Jesus Christ as one would write of a much-loved friend, met often face to face, consulted about everything in life, and trusted beyond all others.
    A few weeks ago this would indeed have been wonderful to the young man, but that it could have any relation to himself—impossible! Now, with the remembrance of his dream, and the joy his heart had felt from the presence of a picture in his room, it seemed it might be true that Christ would love even him, and with so great a love.
    The pleading took hold upon him. Jesus was real to this one girl; He might become real to him.
    The thought of that girlish figure kneeling beside her bed in the solemn night hours praying for him was almost more than he could bear. It filled him with awe and a great joy. He drew his breath in sobs, and did not try to keep the tears from flowing. It seemed that the fountains of the years were broken up in him, and he was weeping out his cry for the lonely, unloved childhood he had lost, and the bitter years of mistakes that had followed.
    It appeared that the Bible had a great part to play in this new life put before him. Verses which he recognized as from the Scripture abounded in the letter, which he did not remember ever to have heard before, but which came to him with a rich sweetness as if spoken just for him.
    Did the Bible contain all that? And why had he not known it before? He had gone to other books for respite from his loneliness. Why had he never known that here was deeper comfort than all else could give?
    "Think of it, Christie," the letter said; 'Jesus Christ would have come to this earth and lived and died to save you if you had been the only one out of the whole earth that was going to accept Him."
    He turned his longing eyes to the picture. Was that true? And the eyes seemed to answer, "Yes, Christie, I would."
    Before he turned out his light that night he took the Bible from the organ, and, opening at random, read, "For I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." And a light of belief overspread his face. He could not sleep for many hours, for thinking of it all.
    There was no question in his mind of whether he would or not. He felt he was the Lord's in spite of everything else. The loving-kindness that had drawn him had been too great for any human resistance.
    Then with the realization of the loving-kindness had come self-reproach for his so long denial and worse than indifference. He did not understand the meaning of repentance and faith, but he was learning them in his life.
    Christie was never the same after that night. Something had changed in him. It may have be en growing all those days since the things first came, but that letter from Hazel Winship marked