Thorpe was rich with the autumn yield before Violet Riversley claimed Ruth’s promise. July had been on the whole a wet month, providing however much-needed rain, but the August and September of Peace Year were glorious as the late spring, and at Thorpe an abundant harvest of corn was stored by the great stacks of scented hay. The apple and pear trees were heavy with fruit. Blenheim Orange and Ribston Pippin with red cheeks polished by much sun; long luscious Jargonelles and Doyenne du Comice pears gleamed yellow and russet. The damson-trees showed purple black amid gold and crimson plums. Mulberry and quince and filbert, every fruit gave lavishly and in full perfection that wonderful autumn; and all were there. Dick Carey had seen to that. The Blackwall children came and went, made hay, picked fruit and reaped corn, as children should. They gathered blackberries and mushrooms and hazel nuts, and helped Ruth to store apples and pears, and Miss McCox to make much jam. Bertram Aurelius got on his feet and began to walk, to the huge joy of Sarah and Selina. The world was a pleasant place. Ruth moved among her children and animals and fruit and flowers, and listened to her nightingales, amid no alien corn, and sang the song old Raphael Goltz had taught her long ago, in a content so great and perfect that sometimes she felt almost afraid that she would wake up one morning and and it all a dream. “It’s just like a fairy-tale that all this should come to me,” she said to Roger North. The cottages were finished and tenanted, their gardens stored and stocked with vegetables and fruit trees, and bright with autumn flowers, from the Thorpe garden. Even Mr. Fothersley was reconciled to their existence.