of contempt.
"In fact, if we were to have much to do with her, I expect we should
find her a perfect nuisance."

"Perhaps. Still we may as well amuse her a bit. She seems to be
having a rotten time with that old red baroness and all that
etiquette," said the Terror in a kindly tone.

"She needn't stand it, if she doesn't like it. I shouldn't," said
Erebus coldly; then her face brightened, and she added: "I tell you
what though: it would be rather fun to teach her to jump on that old
red baroness."

"Yes," said the Terror doubtfully. "But I expect she'd take a lot of
teaching. I don't think she's the kind of kid to do much jumping on
people."

"Oh, you never know. We can always try," said Erebus cheerfully.

"Yes," said the Terror.

Warmed by this noble resolve, they moved quietly out of the wood. It
was not so difficult a matter as it may sound to move, even encumbered
by bicycles, about the home wood, for it was not so carefully preserved
as the woods farther away from the Grange; indeed, the keepers paid but
little attention to it. The Twins moved out of it safely and returned
home with easy minds: it did not occur to either of them that they had
been treating a princess with singular firmness. Nor were they at all
troubled about the acquisition of the peaches since some curious mental
kink prevented them from perceiving that the law of meum and tuum
applied to fruit.

Mrs. Dangerfield was presented with only two peaches at tea that
afternoon; and she took it that the Twins had ridden into Rowington and
bought them for her there. When two more were forthcoming for her
dessert after dinner, she reproached them gently for spending so much
of their salary for "overseering" on her. The Twins said nothing. It
was only when two more peaches came up on her breakfast tray that she
began to suspect that they had come by the ways of warfare and not of
trade. Then, having already eaten four of them, it was a little late
to inquire and protest. Moreover, if there had been a crime, the Twins
had admitted her to a full share in it by letting her eat the fruit of
it. Plainly it was once more an occasion for saying nothing.

On the next afternoon Erebus set out with the Terror to Muttle Deeping
home wood early enough; but owing to the matter of a young rabbit who
met them on their way, they kept the princess waiting twenty minutes.
This was, indeed, a new experience to her; but she did not complain to
them