Children all, these men-folk of the world! Children all, they have been from days immemorial, and presumably will be still the same in the days to come. And their womenkind love them, and comfort them, guide them and tend them, learning, with the sure instinct of womanhood, that they are just little boys, to be taken care of, and watched over, and "mothered" all the time. Christina knew this truth instinctively, if she could not have put it into definite words; Christina knew it; each daughter of Eve knows it by experience bitter or sweet--it is the truth that "every woman knows"! CHAPTER XIV. "I AM QUITE SURE YOU NEED NOT BE AFRAID." "You are sure I need not be alarmed? You are quite, quite sure? She is all my world." Denis Fergusson looked down at the small trembling creature, his eyes full of grave kindliness. "Indeed, you need not be alarmed, Lady Cicely," he said. "I advised Miss Moore to send for you, because with a child, everything is so rapid that one never quite knows at the beginning of an illness how things may go. But little Miss Baba is doing exactly as she ought to do in every way. You need not have the slightest anxiety." The little mother, with her lovely, troubled face, stood in the window of that same low, old-fashioned room, which Rupert, a fortnight earlier, had found such a restful place, and the doctor stood by her side. The winter sunshine fell upon her delicately cut features, lighting the pale gold of her hair into a halo; and the blue eyes she turned to her companion, seemed to him scarcely less innocent and sweet, than the eyes which had looked into his from Baba's cot. "Such a _little_ woman to have the responsibilities of womanhood," was his thought; "such a little woman, who looks as if she ought to be wrapped round with care and tenderness." Perhaps some of the chivalrous tenderness of his thought showed itself in his glance; perhaps Cicely could read in his face the trustworthy nature of the man, for she said quickly: "You see, Baba and I have only each other in the world, and that makes her very extra precious. Sometimes--I am afraid, because I love her so much." "Afraid?" The doctor's glance was puzzled. "Yes, afraid lest God should take her away from me. He might think I was making an idol of her, and that it was better I should do without her. That thought makes me afraid." To no living soul before, had Cicely told of the fear that often stirred within her, but Denis Fergusson's brown eyes and sympathetic manner, invited confidence, and in some unaccountable fashion he made her think of John, the loving husband who had always understood.