She needed no pressing to take off her jacket and hat; and was pleased by the Terror’s observing that it was just silly to wear a hat at all when one had such thick hair as she. But she was some time acting on Erebus’ suggestion that she should also pull off her stockings and be more comfortable still.
At last she pulled them off, and for once comfortable, she began to tell of the fuss the excited baroness had made the day before about her having gone alone into such a fearful and dangerous place as the home wood.
“I tell you what: you’ve spoilt that baroness,” said the Terror when she came to the end of her tale; and he spoke with firm conviction.
“But she’s my gouvernante. I have to do as she bids,” protested the princess.
“That’s all rubbish. You’re the princess; and other people ought to do what you tell them; and no old baroness should make you do any silly thing you don’t want to. She wouldn’t me,” said Erebus with even greater conviction than the Terror had shown.
“I don’t think she would,” said the princess with a faint sigh; and she looked at Erebus with envious eyes. “But when she starts making a fuss and gets so red and excited, she—she—rather frightens me.”
“It would take a lot more than that to frighten me,” said Erebus with a very cold ferocity.
“I rather like people like that. I think they look so funny when they’re really red and excited,” said the Terror gently. “But what you’ve got to do is to stand up to her.”
“Stand up to her?” said the princess, puzzled by the idiom.
“Tell her that you don’t care what she says,” said the Terror.