Hers was the spirit of Joan of old, who reckoned nothing of value but her ideal.
Nor can we blame her.

When your cheeks are twin roses; your hair black as a crow's wing and fine as silk; and your teeth--not one missing--so many seed pearls peeping from pomegranate lips; when your blood goes skipping and bubbling through your veins; when at night you sleep like a baby, and at morn you spring from your bed in the joy of another day; when there are two strong brown hands and two strong arms, and a great, loving, honest heart every bit your own; and when, too, there are crisp autumn afternoons to come, with gold and brown for a carpet, and long winter evenings, the fire-light dancing on the overhead rafters; and 'way--'way--beyond this--somewhere in the far future there rises a slender spire holding a chime of bells, and beneath it a deep-toned organ--when this, I say, is, or will be, your own--the gold of the Indies is but so much tinkling brass, and Cleopatra's diadem a mere bauble with which to quiet a child.
It was not until he was nearing Corklesville that the sense of the money really came to him.

He knew what it would mean to Ruth and what her eyes would hold of gladness and relief.

Suddenly there sprang to his lips an unbidden laugh, a spontaneous overflow from the joy of his heart; the first he had uttered for days.

Ruth should know first.