scovered the ruins, and since then a part of each
city has been excavated."

"I should like to know just how the people of Pompeii lived, and what
they were doing when the city was destroyed," said Edith.

"You shall see the relics that were taken from the ruins and are now
in the museum at Naples," her mother told her. "The life of the old
Pompeiians has been studied from those relics and a guide can tell you
just how they did their housekeeping and what their life was like."

Before she left America, Edith had looked forward to the smoking
mountain of Vesuvius and the city of Pompeii as being the most
wonderful part of her journey. The volcano, and the city which lay
buried under ashes for centuries, had been the goal of her desires.

"Wait until we see Vesuvius and Pompeii!" had been her cry whenever
she wrote home. "Then I shall have something to tell you!"

But she turned her face away from the forbidding crater and the
desolate beds of lava with a feeling of disappointment that was half
fear.

"Perhaps I shall like better to go into the museum and see the curious
things that were found in Pompeii," she said, as she searched for a
bit of lava from which to have a piece of jewelry fashioned.

"Just think of having the whole world interested to know how the
people baked their bread so long ago," said Rafael; and when they had
returned to Naples, the children found it very interesting to visit
the museum and imagine how the people lived in the time of Christ.

Then one day they went down to the ruined city, riding in a small car
over a roadbed so loosely made that Rafael laughed about it, and Edith
said it was only a toy journey.

But when they went through the sea-gate at Pompeii, passed the army of
boys bearing baskets of earth from the excavations, and stood in the
silent streets, Edith drew closer to her mother, and Rafael walked
quietly beside them.

[Illustration: "THE ARMY OF BOYS BEARING BASKETS OF EARTH FROM THE
EXCAVATIONS AT POMPEII" ]

They followed the instructions of the guide and looked obediently
at the deep ruts made in the pavements of the narrow streets by the
old Roman chariot wheels. They walked through the forum, and stood in
the ruined amphitheatre.

At last Edith drew Mrs. Sprague into the lonely angle of a wall where
they could see nothing of the crumbled houses all about them, the
pavements, or the great stepping-stones in the streets.

"I want to go home," she