On the point of speaking, she gazed round.

'Perfectly safe! no harm possible,' said he, fretful under the burden of
this her maniacal maternal anxiety.

'The men are all right, they would not hurt a child. What can rationally
be suspected!'

'I know the men; they love their children,' she replied. 'I think my
child would be precious to them. Mr. Woodseer and Mr. Edwards and Madge
are there.'

'Is the one more request--I mean, a mother's anxiety does not run to the
extent of suspecting everybody?'

'Some of the children are very pretty,' said Carinthia, and eyed the
bands of them at their games in the roadway and at the cottage doors.
'Children of the poor have happy mothers.'

Her eyes were homely, morning over her face. They were open now to what
that fellow Woodseer (who could speak to the point when he was not aiming
at it) called the parlour, or social sitting-room; where we may have
converse with the tame woman's mind, seeing the door to the clawing
recesses temporarily shut.

'Forgive me if I say you talk like the bigger child,' Fleetwood said
lightly, not ungenially; for the features he looked on were museful,
a picture in their one expression.

Her answer chilled him. 'It is true, my lord. I will not detain you.