The recalling of that vision worked like magic in Justin's blood. His
soul rose and stretched its wings and "traced its better portion"
vividly, as he sprang to his feet and walked up and down the bedroom
floor. He would get a few days' leave and go back to Edgewood for
Christmas, to join, with all the old neighbours, in the service at the
meeting-house; and in pursuance of this resolve, he shook his fist in the
face of the landlady's husband on the mantelpiece and dared him to
prevent.

He had a salary of fifty dollars a month, with some very slight prospect
of an increase after January. He did not see how two persons could eat,
and drink, and lodge, and dress on it in Detroit, but he proposed to give
Nancy Wentworth the refusal of that magnificent future, that brilliant
and tempting offer. He had exactly one hundred dollars in the bank, and
sixty or seventy of them would be spent in the journeys, counting two
happy, blessed fares back from Edgewood to Detroit; and if he paid only
his own fare back, he would throw the price of the other into the pond
behind the Wentworth house. He would drop another ten dollars into the
plate on Christmas Day toward the repairs on the church; if he starved,
he would do that. He was a failure. Everything his hand touched turned
to naught. He looked himself full in the face, recognizing his weakness,
and in this supremest moment of recognition he was a stronger man than he
had been an hour before. His drooping shoulders had straightened; the
restless look had gone from his eyes; his sombre face had something of
repose in it, the repose of a settled purpose. He was a failure, but
perhaps if he took the risks (and if Nancy would take them--but that was
the trouble, women were so unselfish, they were always willing to take
risks, and one ought not to let them!), perhaps he might do better in
trying to make a living for two than he had in working for himself alone.