said the princess.

"I don't think there's much chance of your getting strong in that
peach-garden. It didn't feel to me like the open air at all," said the
Terror firmly.

"But it is the open air," said the princess.

They came out of the narrow path they had been following into a broader
one, and presently they turned aside from that at the foot of a steep
and pathless bank. The Twins started up it as if it were neither here
nor there to them; as, indeed, it was not.

But the princess stopped short, and said in a tone of dismay:

"Am I to climb this?"

The Terror stopped, looked at her dismayed face, set his bicycle
against the trunk of a tree, and said:

"I'll help you up."

With that, dismissing etiquette from his mind, he slipped his arm round
the slender waist of the princess, and firmly hauled her to the top of
the bank. He relieved her of most of the effort needed to mount it;
but none the less she reached the top panting a little.

"You certainly aren't in very good training," he said rather sadly.

"Training? What is training?" said the princess.

"It's being fit," said Erebus in a faintly superior tone.

"And what is being fit?" said the princess.

"It's being strong--and well--and able to run miles and miles," said
Erebus raising her voice to make her meaning clearer.

"You needn't shout at her," said the Terror.

"I'm trying to make her understand," said Erebus firmly.

"But I do understand--when it is not the slang you are using. I know
English quite well," said the princess.

"You certainly speak it awfully well," said the Terror politely.

He went down the bank and hauled up his bicycle. They went a little
deeper into the wood and reached their goal, the banks of a small pool.

They sat down in a row, and the princess looked at its cool water, in
the cool green shade of the tall trees, with refreshed eyes.

"This _is_ different," she said with a faint little sigh of pleasure.

[Illustration: "This is different," she said.]

"Yes; this is the real open air," said the Terror.

"But I do get lots of open air," protested the princess. "Why, I sleep
with my window open--at least that much." She held out her two
forefingers some six inches apart. "The baroness did not like it. She
said it was very dangerous and would give me the chills. But Doctor
Arbuthnot said that it must be open. I think I sleep better."

"We have our bedroom windows as wide open as they'll go; and t