a swollen face,
dabbing on belladonna, and Miss Rodgers careering round telling me I
must have it out. Ugh! My ailments always turn up when I'm going
anywhere."

"Well, you're all right to-day at any rate," consoled Delia, rather
unsympathetically.

"If I don't get seasick on the boat."

"Oh, buck up! You mustn't. We'll throw you overboard to the fishes if
you do anything so silly. For goodness' sake don't any one start
symptoms and spoil the fun. Where's Miss Morley? I'm just aching to be
off."

The party left Fossato by the early morning steamer and went straight
to Naples. They drove from the quay to the station, then took the little
local train for Vesuvius. Italian railways generally provide scant
accommodation for the number of passengers, so there ensued a wild
scramble for seats, and it was only by the help of the conductor, whom
she had judiciously tipped, that Miss Morley managed to keep her flock
together, and settle them in one of the small saloon carriages. Here
they were wedged pretty tightly among native Italians, and tourists of
various nations, including some voluble Swedes and a company of dapper
Japanese gentlemen, who were seeing Europe. After much pushing,
crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and
officials, the train at last started and pursued its jolting and jerky
way. It ran first through the poorer district of Naples, where
dilapidated houses, whose faded walls showed traces of former gay pink,
blue, or yellow color-wash, stood in the midst of vegetable gardens;
then, the slums left behind, the line passed a long way among vineyards
and orchards of almond, peach, and cherry that were just bursting into
glorious lacy blossom. The railway banks were gay with the flowers which
March scatters in Southern Italy, red poppies, orange marigolds, lupins,
campanulas, purple snapdragons, and wild mignonette, growing anywhere
among stones and rocks, with the luxuriance that in northern countries
is reserved for June.

At Torre Annunziata the party from the Villa Camellia all crowded to the
carriage window, for Miss Morley had something to point out to them.

"We're passing over the lava formed by the great eruption in 1906. The
whole of the railway line and ever so many houses were buried then.
Don't you see bits of them peeping out over there?"

"Why, yes, it looks like cinders," commented Lorna.

"They're great masses of crumbling lava turning into soil. Wait till