ys threatening it."

So the children began at once to plan for the Twelfth-night festival.

"Mother and I will make some peasant costumes for us to wear," Edith
told Rafael, and added, "or you might wear a soldier's uniform and a
cocked hat. The soldiers look so fine and march so well in Italy!"

"Come children, it is time to go to bed if we are to take the early
morning train to Rome," interrupted Mrs. Sprague, who had been
studying a time-table; and the children separated, little dreaming
that every plan would soon be changed.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MAGIC OF THE FOUNTAIN

In the morning they wakened to find on every tongue the news of the
terrible earthquake at Messina, and for many days it was Italy the
desolate that filled their minds and kept their hands busy.

People who saw it never forgot the dreadful misery of the country at
that time.

Edith and Rafael stood silent, as when they had walked the streets of
the buried city of Pompeii, and watched the confusion of vessels
coming and going to the South. Boxes and bundles of all sizes and
shapes were piled high on the wharf, and supplies of food and clothing
were being hurried to the suffering city.

Newspaper men, frantic to gather news which everyone wished to hear,
hurried back and forth on the quay, filling Edith with indignation.
"What difference does it make whether we know all the latest news or
not?" she asked hotly. "All those poor, starving people must be fed."

Rafael watched the soldiers march through the streets, without the
music of the band, and go on board the ships to follow the king's boat
to the stricken island, and his heart yearned to go with them.

"Italy is accursed," he heard the superstitious Neapolitans moaning,
but he shook his head. "Not while the king and queen live, and teach
us how to help," he said to himself, and then he went to find Mrs.
Sprague.

"I cannot live this idle life any longer," he said, as he had said it
once before, in Venice.

And as his mother asked then, so Mrs. Sprague asked now, "What will
you do?"

"I will follow the king to Messina and ask him to make me one of the
patrol guard," the boy answered.

They were standing on the quay as he spoke, and could see a
relief-ship which was getting up steam, ready to sail out of the
harbor.

Mrs. Sprague was alarmed. She knew that the boy would not be allowed
to go into the ruined city, and she felt sure that his mother would
not permit him to go if