“Do nod indervere! I veel zose childen vind myzelf!” snapped the baroness.
The princess rose, still quivering a little from the conflict, but glowing with the joy of victory. At the door she paused to say:
“And I want them soon—at once.”
Then, though the baroness had many times forbidden her to tempt the night air, she went firmly out into the garden. The next morning at breakfast she again demanded children to play with.
Accordingly when Doctor Arbuthnot paid his visit that morning, the baroness asked him what children in the neighborhood could be invited to come to play with the princess. She only stipulated that they should be high and well-born.
“Well, of course the proper children to play with her would be the Twins—Mrs. Dangerfield’s boy and girl. They’re high and well-born enough. But I doubt that they could be induced to play with a little girl. They’re independent young people. Besides, I’m not at all sure that they would be quite the playmates for a quiet princess. It would hardly do to expose an impressionable child like the princess to such—er—er ardent spirits. You might have her developing a spirit of freedom; and you wouldn’t like that.”
“Mein Gott, no!” said the baroness with warm conviction.
“Then there’s Wiggins—Rupert Carrington. He’s younger and quieter but active enough. He’d soon teach her to run about.”
“But is he well-born?” said the careful baroness.
“Well-born? He’s a Carrington,” said Doctor Arbuthnot with an impressive air that concealed well his utter ignorance of the ancestry of the higher mathematician.