"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.
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 said with a shudder. "I never want to see Vesuvius again."
She was plainly homesick. It was a sudden ending to the "long thoughts of youth" which had filled so many hours with bright anticipations; but she was in such a hurry to get away from the buried city that they took the next train back to Naples without even stopping to buy picture postcards of the ruins.
When they reached their hotel in Naples they found a foreign war-ship anchored in the bay.
"There is the old man-of-war threatening us from the land, and here is one in the bay," exclaimed Edith. "It makes me nervous!"
Mrs. Sprague saw that her daughter was tired. "We will go back to Rome to-morrow," she said.