On a certain day towards the end of March, Miss Morley, who usually acted as cicerone and general guide, arranged to take a select little party up Vesuvius. Irene, Lorna, Peachy, and Delia were among the favored few, and congratulated themselves exceedingly. It is certainly not an every-day occurrence for schoolgirls to view a volcano, and this particular excursion, being long and difficult, was kept as a special treat, and was regarded as the titbit of the various expeditions from the Villa Camellia. Many of the girls had, of course, made it on former occasions, but to those whom Miss Morley was escorting to-day it was all new.
"I was to have gone last autumn," confided Peachy, "but the fact is I got into a little fix with Miss Rodgers, and she started on the rampage and canceled my exeat. I cried till I was simply a sopping sponge, but she was a perfect crab that day. Lorna, weren't you to have gone too once before?"
"Yes, and got toothache. Just like my luck. There the others were starting off, and I was sitting by the stove with 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.