No environment could have been better for the girl: the beautiful air, the fresh country sights and sounds, soothed and strengthened her worn nerves. When Verity woke in the morning, instead of the rumbling of carts and wagons, she heard the fluting of blackbirds and thrushes in the orchard below, and the lowing of cows for their pastures. Everything was new and fresh to her; every flower in the hedgerow, every bird singing in the copse, was a miracle and revelation; the old miserable life had slipped away from her like a disused and faded garment, and her soul seemed new-born and steeped in beauty. "Oh, the peace and the loveliness of it all!" she would say to Amias when he came down for his Sunday visit. "Am I really Verity--Verity Westbrook, who used to live in that dreadful Montagu Street?" And then she would look wistfully at him--for she had grown strangely timid and self-distrustful. But he would only laugh at her in his kindly way. "Yea-Verily, my child, it is certainly you yourself," he would answer; "when Nature made you she broke her mould, there could not be two editions of Verity." Sometimes, when she was low and weak, and memories of the past horrors were too vivid, and even his big laugh and little jokes failed to drive them away, she would cling to his arm and entreat him not to send her back. "If I see that place again I shall die," she once said, and the look in her eyes, and the way her small hand went to her throat, as though the very thought impeded her breathing, told him that she spoke the truth. What was he to do with her? That was the question that occupied him for many a day. The summer had passed, and autumn was well advanced before he found the right answer. One October afternoon he had taken her out for a walk as usual, and they had sat down to rest on a bench under a wide-spreading chestnut tree overlooking a village green. An aged donkey and some geese were feeding near them, but there was no one in sight. The old gammers and gaffers of the village were sitting by their firesides, for, in spite of the sunshine, the air was cold, and more than once Verity shivered as she sat. "This wind is too cold for you, my child," he said presently; "let us walk on." But she shook her head. "No, please let us stay a little longer. I do so love this village. If I were an artist I would paint it. Amias," interrupting herself, "there is something I want to say to you. I have been at dear Colbrook seven months--seven happy, beautiful months--but I am well now, and quite strong, and it is time for me to work and get my own living."