"O, Ruth, you are making fun."
"Indeed, I am in earnest; that seems to be what you expect. Now if I prayed about it, I should ask that I might have my senses about me when I was called, so that I might think what I ought to do, and do it. That is about as much as the Lord will do, and then if we fail, the fault is our own."
"Will you call me to-morrow whenever you waken, Ruth? I must have been making a mistake all along."
After that there was no more difficulty, and Ruth told her she was to be envied, having overcome her last failing.
"I wish I had," was the earnest reply, "but I have any number of faults that you do not see."
"Then I should not call them by such a hard name, if they were modest enough not to thrust themselves out to public gaze."
"You would not? It is only grace that keeps them within bounds, and I am quite as conscious of them as if they were seen. They do not, however, overcome me as they might if others saw them. But after all, Ruth, I think we often call things faults in others, that would be virtues, if we knew more of their lives and the motives that prompted their conduct."
"It is probable," said her sister, "but there is not much of this getting to understand each other's natures. There is not enough trouble taken to find one another out."
