But he said that they were not the kind of children for her, though they were the only high and well-born ones the baroness was clamoring for, in the neighborhood.

He seemed to think that they would make her rebellious." "Then the princess didn't know them ?" said Sir Maurice quickly.
"No." "I wonder," said Sir Maurice skeptically.
"We found a little boy called Rupert Carrington to play with her--a very nice little boy," said Miss Lambart.
"Wiggins! The Twins' greatest friend! Well, I'll be shot!" cried Sir Maurice; and he laughed.
"But do you mean to say that you think that these children have something to do with the princess' disappearance?
How old are they ?" said Miss Lambart in an incredulous tone, for fixed very firmly in her mind was the belief that the princess had been carried off by the Socialists and foreigners.
"I never know whether they are thirteen or fourteen.

But I do know that nothing out of the common happens in the Deepings without their having a hand in it.

I have the honor to be their uncle," said Sir Maurice.
"But they'd never be able to persuade her to run away with them.

She's a timid child; and she has been coddled and cosseted all her life till she is delicate to fragility," Miss Lambart protested.
"If it came to a matter of persuasion, my nephew would persuade the hind-leg, or perhaps even the fore-leg, off a horse," said Sir Maurice in a tone of deep conviction.