Tess stayed with her family all through the winter months. Her experiences had changed her from a simple girl to a complex woman. Her soul was that of a woman who had not been demoralised by her sorrows.

The spring came, with a feeling of germination in the air. It moved Tess with a desire for life. She knew that she could never be comfortable in Marlott again. But if she went somewhere else, where no one knew her history? Tess longed to go. She heard that a dairy farm many miles to the south needed a milkmaid, and she decided to go there. A spirit was rising in her as automatically as the sap in the trees: it was the spirit of youth, and with it came hope.

On a beautiful morning in May, she took a hired cart to the town of Stourcastle. There she took another cart to Talbothay's Dairy. The cart passed by Kingsbere Church, where the d'Urbervilles were buried. Tess no longer admired her ancestors. They were responsible, she felt, for all her troubles. 'I will tell no one in the new place that I am a d'Urberville,' she thought. Yet one of the reasons this particular place attracted her was that it was near the ancestral lands of her family.

She looked with interest as the cart entered the Valley of the Great Dairies, a verdant plain watered by the River Froom. 'This will be my new home!' she thought. The green fields were full of brown and white cattle, grazing peacefully in the evening light. The waters of the River Froom were clear and rapid. Tess felt happy and hopeful. The fresh air and the excitement of a new place made her cheeks pink and her eyes bright.

She reached the dairy at milking-time. The dairy workers in the milk-house watched with interest as Tess approached. The owner of the dairy - Mr Crick - introduced himself to Tess. 'Do you want something to eat before you start milking?' he asked.

'No, thank you,' Tess replied. Mr Crick gave her a stool. She placed it beside a cow, sat down, rested her cheek against the cow's side, and began milking. Soon the only sound in the milk-house was that of warm milk squirting into buckets.

After a little while, the dairy workers began to talk.

'The cows are not giving as much milk as usual,' said one.

'That's because we have someone new in the dairy,' replied another. 'It always happens.'

'We should sing a song to calm their nerves,' said a third.

'You could play your harp to them, sir,' said Mr Crick.

'Why?' asked a voice that seemed to come from the brown cow opposite Tess.