d now I must return to the story.

While Mr. George and Rollo were in Florence, Rollo was occupied mainly,
as I have already said, in rambling about the town, and observing the
scenes of real and active life, which every where met his view in the
streets and squares, while Mr. George spent his time chiefly in the
churches, and in the galleries of painting and sculpture, studying the
works of art. One morning after breakfast, Mr. George was going to the
great gallery in the palace of the grand duke, to spend the day there.
Rollo said that he would walk with him a little way. So they walked
together along the street which led by the bank of the river.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, "how much longer is it going to take for you
to study these paintings and statues till you are satisfied?"

"Five or ten years," said Mr. George.

"O uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo; "I have seen as much of them as _I_
want to see already."

"You have not seen one of them yet," said Mr. George.

"Not seen one of them!" repeated Rollo.

"No, not one of them," replied Mr. George.

"I don't know what you mean by that," said Rollo.

"I'll show you what I mean some time or other," said Mr. George, "when
you are in one of the galleries with me."

"I should like to have you," said Rollo; "but now I really want to know
when you are going to be ready to go on towards Naples. I'd rather see
Mount Vesuvius than all the paintings in the world, especially if there
is a good blazing eruption coming out of it, and plenty of red-hot
stones."

"The first question to be settled," said Mr. George, "is, how we shall
go."

"Are there more ways than one?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "there are three or four ways. We are here at
Florence, in the interior of the country, and Rome is also in the
interior; but there is a seaport on the coast for each city. So we can
go from here to Leghorn, which is the seaport for Florence, by the
railroad, and there we can take a steamboat and go to Civita Vecchia,
which is the seaport for Rome. There we can land and go up to Rome in
some sort of a carriage."

"I like that way," said Rollo. "I like that best of all. There are a
railroad and a steamboat both in it."

"Another way," continued Mr. George, "is, we can go by the malle
post."[A]

[Footnote A: The malle post is a sort of despatch carriage, that takes
the mails. It can take also two or three passengers. They change horses
very often with the malle