Barton shrugged his shoulders, and went off without making reply, and for the moment Mrs. Darrow was baffled. But she still continued to suspect Miriam--Heaven only knows of what--and to keep a close watch on her every action. It gave quite a new zest to her life, this new pursuit. And shortly all the parish, that is, the female portion of it, was in Mrs. Darrow's confidence; and Miriam was watched not alone by one, but by a hundred envious eyes, and debated about at a dozen tea-tables. But all this espionage resulted in nothing, and the suspect went serenely on her way, as did Una through the Forest of a Thousand Dangers. The toads spat venom, but the snakes could not bite. "Dicky," said Miss Crane one warm and sunny morning, "I want you to put on your cap and take me up the village." "No lessons this morning?" Dicky jumped up with joy, after the manner of boyhood. "No lessons this morning," laughed Miriam, "some fresh air, dear, instead. I'm not going to have you grow up a pale-faced bookworm." "I love my books," said Dicky, as they left the cottage, not without a disapproving word from Mrs. Darrow. "I know you do, Dicky, almost too well. But you must get your health first, and then the rest can follow." The boy understood. He was thoroughly in sympathy with Miriam. And without being aware of it, he was learning a great deal from her, apart altogether from his studies. She told him stories, interested him in the wonders of earth and sky--things which so frequently escape the careless--and taught him generally how to use his eyes. In the very hedges, Dicky found a new world of flower and berry, and tiny active insect life. She pointed out to him the fluttering dragon-flies, the beetle rolling his ball of mud; she revealed to him the miracle of a grain of wheat, showing him how it bears upon it the image of a man with folded arms. The boy had imagination, and did not need to be told twice. Suggestion was everything to him. He was a dreamer--a poet in embryo. Indeed, Miriam soon found that he had far too vivid an imagination, so much so that she felt obliged to discourage any extreme stimulation of it. "Observe more, and think less, Dicky," she said. "I want you to notice lots of things that you see every day and don't notice now, perhaps because you do see them every day; there are lots of interesting things you know in the fields and the hedges--lots of little worlds and their inhabitants, all as busy as can be, and to be seen if we only look for them." "I believe you lived in the country," said Dicky admiringly, "you know such a lot of jolly things, Miss Crane." "I did live in the country once, Dicky," Miriam sighed. "But that was long, long ago. I lived by the sea at one time--there are wonderful things in the sea, dear." "I've read 'Midshipman Easy,' and I should like awfully to be a sailor." Miriam laughed. "That is not exactly what I meant. Never mind, come along, there's the church; I want to walk across the meadow to it."