Free The Story of a Whim by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

a decided epoch in his life. All his manhood rose to meet the sweetness of the girl's unasked prayer for him.
    It mattered not that she thought not of him as a man. She had prayed, and the prayer had reached up to heaven and back to him again.
    The only touch of sadness about it was that he should never be able to see her and thank her face to face for the good she had done to him. He thought of her as some far-away angel who had stooped to earth for a little while, and in some of his reveries dreamed that perhaps in heaven, where all things are made right, he should know her. For the present it was enough that he had her sweet friendship, and her companionship in writing.
    Not for worlds now would he reveal his identity. And the thought that this might be wrong did not enter his mind. What harm could it possibly do? and what infinite good to himself!—and perhaps through himself to a few of those little black children. He let this thought come timidly to the front.
    This was the beginning of the friendship that made life a new thing to Christie Bailey. Long letters he wrote, telling the thoughts of his inmost heart as he had never told them to anyone on earth, as he would never have been able to tell them to one whom he hoped to meet sometime, as he would have told them to God.
    And the college student found time amid her essays and her sororities to answer them promptly.
    Her companions wondered why she wasted so much valuable time on that poor "cracker" girl, as they sometimes spoke of Christie, and how she could have patience to write so long letters; but their curiosity did not go so far as to wonder what she found to say; else they might have noticed that less and less often did Hazel offer to read aloud her letters from the Southland. But they were busy, and only occasionally inquired about Christie now, or sent a message.
    Hazel herself sometimes wondered why this stranger girl had taken so deep a hold upon her; but the days went by and the letters came frequently, and she never found her self willing to put one by unanswered. There was always some question that needed answering, some point on which her young convert to Jesus Christ needed enlightenment.
    Then, too, she found herself growing nearer to Jesus because of this friendship with one who was just learning to trust Him in so childlike and earnest a way.
    "Do you know," she said confidingly to Ruth Summers one day, "I cannot make myself see Christie Bailey as homely? It doesn't seem possible to me. I think she is mistaken. I know I shall find something handsome about her when I see her, which I shall some day."
    And Ruth smiled mockingly. "O Hazel, Hazel, it will be better, then, for you never to see poor Christie, I am sure; for you will surely find your ideal different from the reality."
    But Hazel's eyes grew dreamy, and she shook her head.
    "No, Ruth, I'm sure, sure. A girl couldn't have all the beautiful thoughts Christie has, and not be fine in expression. There will be some beauty in her, I am sure. Her eyes, now, I know are magnificent. I wish she would send me a picture; but she won't have one taken, though I've coaxed and coaxed."

CHAPTER 8
Sad News from the No rth
    In his own heart-life Christie was changing day by day. The picture of Christ was his constant companion. At first shyly and then openly he grew to make a confidant of it. He studied the lines of the face, and fitted them to the lines of the life depicted in the New Testament, and without his knowing it his own face was changing. The lines of recklessness and hardness about his mouth were gone. The dullness of discontent was gone from his eyes. They could light now from within in a flash with a joy that no discouragement could quite quench.
    By common c onsent Christie's companions respected his new way of life, and perhaps after the first few weeks if he had shown a disposition to go back to the old way of doing might have even attempted to keep him to his new course.
    They every one